Volume 34 Issue 7 IMS Bulletin

August/September 2005 2005 IMS Election Results

CONTENTS 1 IMS Election results 2-5 Members’ News 6-7 Obituaries: George Dantzig and Adhir Kumar Basu Congratulations to the new IMS Council members and President-Elect! 6 Medallion Lecture preview Pictured in the top row [l-r]: Maury Bramson, Merlise Clyde, John Einmahl, Jun Liu, and Daniel Peña are the new members of Council. 8 Annual Survey of the Jim Pitman [right] is the new President-Elect. All of them will be Mathematical Sciences taking up their new roles at the 68th IMS Annual Meeting at the Joint 11 New journal to improve Statistical Meetings which take place in Minneapolis, August 7–11. electronic publishing We are pleased to announce the results of the 2005 IMS Elections. Th e next President- 12 Terence’s Stuff : Going to Elect will be Jim Pitman (UC Berkeley). Th e 5 new council members are, in alpha- China betical order, Maury Bramson (University of Minneapolis), Merlise Clyde (Duke 13 Meet the Members University), John Einmahl (Tilburg University, Th e Netherlands), Jun Liu (Harvard 14 Profi les: Martin Barlow & University), and Daniel Peña (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain). A total of 860 votes were cast, with just 4 paper ballots received. According to the IMS constitution, there are at least 15 members of Council, whi 16 Meeting reports: SPA05 and satellite workshop serve for three years, with the terms of approximately one third terminating at each year’s Annual Meeting (you can read the IMS handbook online, or download it from 17 Letter to the Editor http://www.imstat.org/handbook/). Retiring from Council this year are Alan Karr, J 18 IMS Meetings Steve Marron, Per Mykland, David W Scott, and Jane-Ling Wang. We thank them for 25 Other Meetings and their service. Announcements Th e new council members will join Richard Gill, Hans R Künsch, Christian P Robert and Ruth J Williams, who will serve for another year, and Susan Holmes, 28 Employment Opportunities Nancy Flournoy, Erwin Bolthausen, Michael Steele, and Xuming He, whose terms last another two years. 32 International Calendar of Statistical Events

35 Information for Advertisers At which meeting was this beautiful butterfl y spotted? Turn to page 16 to fi nd out! Photo: Ian Carlson IMS Bulletin 2 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7 Volume 34, Issue 7 August/September 2005 Member News ISSN 1544-1881 2005 SSC Honorary Memberships The Statistical Society of Canada announced that Professor Contact A K Md Ehsanes Saleh of Carleton University and Professor James Information V Zidek of the University of British Columbia have been awarded Honorary Memberships in the Society. An Honorary member is a Bulletin Editor statistical scientist of outstanding distinction who has contributed Assistant Editor Tati Howell to the development of statistics in Canada. Professor Emeritus A K Md Ehsanes Saleh is awarded the rank Honorary SSC members To contact the IMS Bulletin: Ehsanes Saleh (above) of Honorary Member of the SSC for his outstanding research and and James Zidek (below) Send by email: [email protected] development of nonparametric methods for preliminary test and or mail to: shrinkage estimation, auto-regression quantiles, and order statistics; IMS Bulletin for his superb service towards the development of graduate pro- 20 Shadwell Uley, Dursley grams at Carleton University and the training of PhD and young GL11 5BW postdoctoral fellows in statistics; for his dedicated service to the UK profession, especially in the creative organization of symposia with edited volumes. Professor Saleh is a Fellow of IMS, ASA, Royal Statistical Society and the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences, and an To contact the IMS regarding your dues, membership, subscriptions, orders or elected member of ISI. change of address: Professor Zidek, who is also an IMS Fellow, has made fundamental research contribu- tions ranging from theoretical foundations for decision making to environmental modeling Institute of Mathematical Statistics Dues and Subscriptions Office of spatial air pollution data. For his work, he has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society 9650 Rockville Pike, Suite L2407A of Canada and was awarded the SSC Gold Medal in 2000, the Ninth Eugene Lukacs Bethesda, Symposium Distinguished Service Award, the Distinguished Achievement Medal of the MD 20814-3998 Environmental Statistics Section of the ASA, and the Izaak Walton Killam Research Prize. USA He has served the statistical community in many ways, including as NSERC Group Chair t 301.634.7029 of the Mathematical Sciences and President of the Statistical Society of Canada. Professor f 301.634.7099 Zidek was also the first Head of UBC’s Department of Statistics. e staff@imstat.org

To contact the IMS regarding any other 2005 CRM-SSC Prize matter, including advertising, copyright The Statistical Society of Canada announced today that Professor permission, offprint orders, copyright Jiahua Chen of the University of Waterloo has been awarded transfer, societal matters, meetings, fellows nominations and content of the CRM-SSC Prize for 2005. The SSC-CRM Prize is awarded publications: annually by the Statistical Society of Canada and the Centre de Executive Director, Elyse Gustafson recherches mathématiques in recognition of a statistical scientist’s IMS Business Office professional accomplishments in research during the first fifteen PO Box 22718 years after earning a doctorate. Beachwood, Professor Chen’s research is remarkable for its breadth, depth OH 44122 and quality. Within 15 years of his PhD, he has made major sustained contributions USA to three areas: design of experiments, inference for mixtures, and survey methodology. t 216.295.2340 f 216.295.5661 Professor Chen combines powerful mathematical ability with keen insight into what is e [email protected] important statistically. His work combines deep theory and practical methodology for deal- ing with difficult issues. Professor Chen has written papers on many other topics including fish surveys, fractals, genetics and robust estimation. Executive Committee August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 3 President: Louis Chen [email protected] President-Elect: Thomas G Kurtz [email protected]

Past President: Terry Speed Shelemyahu Zacks receives Haifa University Honorary DPhil [email protected] Nitis Mukhopadhyay reports: Professor Shelemyahu Zacks of Executive Secretary: Alicia Carriquiry Binghamton University, New York, has been awarded an honorary [email protected] degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Haifa. The citation for the Honoris Causa degree was for his “innovative and Treasurer: Jiayang Sun [email protected] multifarious contribution to the study of statistics and the advance- ment and development of applied statistics in various scientific Program Secretary: Andrew Nobel fields; and in token of his longstanding aid to the University of [email protected] Haifa’s Department of Statistics through teaching and research.” Professor Zacks is best known for his groundbreaking research IMS Editors on change-point and common mean problems, Bayes sequential Annals of Statistics: Morris Eaton [email protected] strategies and reliability analysis. He made fundamental contribu- & tions in naval research and other defense related areas. He is widely [email protected] published, with more than 150 journal articles, and his authorita- Annals of Probability: Steven Lalley tive book, The Theory of Statistical Inference (1971, Wiley). Many [email protected] hold him in the highest esteem as a mentor. Annals of Applied Probability: Robert Adler Professor Zacks is an elected Fellow of IMS, ASA, the American Association for the [email protected] Advancement of Science, and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. See “A Conversation with Shelemyahu Zacks” by Nitis Mukhopadhyay (2005, Statist. Sci., Statistical Science: Ed George [email protected] no. 1, vol 20, pp. 89-110) for more details about Professor Zacks. IMS Lecture Notes – Monograph Series: Richard Vitale [email protected] Scott Grimshaw receives 2005 Hartley Award Managing Editor, Statistics: Paul Shaman Dr Scott Grimshaw is the 2005 recipient of the H O Hartley Award given by the Texas [email protected] A&M Department of Statistics. The H O Hartley Award is given annually to a former Managing Editor, Probability: Michael Phelan student of the Department of Statistics at Texas A&M University for distinguished service [email protected] to the discipline of statistics. Electronic Journal of Probability: Ted Cox Dr Grimshaw is a Professor in the Department of Statistics at Brigham Young [email protected] University. He received his PhD from Texas A&M in 1989 under the direction of Professor Electronic Communications in Probability: Martin Barlow Emanuel Parzen. The Hartley Award is in honor of the founder of the department, [email protected] H O Hartley. The award committee attempts to select a recipient who parallels Dr Hartley’s Managing Editor, EJP/ECP: Zhenqing Chen well-rounded career. Dr Grimshaw’s career has not only included [email protected] distinguished service, but has demonstrated excellence in teaching, research and consulting. In the spirit of H O Hartley, Dr Grimshaw Probability Surveys: David Aldous is a great teacher; his research is characterized by developing new [email protected] statistical methodology to provide solutions to real-world problems IMS Bulletin: Bernard Silverman arising from business and engineering. An outstanding example & Tati Howell [email protected] of this research is his paper in Technometrics, “Eliciting Factor Importance in a Designed Experiment”, for which he received Web Editor: Hemant Ishwaran the 2001 Wilcoxon Prize. His service contributions and outreach [email protected] & Arti Ishwaran activities are extensive. The Hartley Award will be presented to Dr Herman Otto Hartley [email protected] Grimshaw during the Aggie Reunion on August 8, 2005 at the (1912–1980) was an IMS Joint Statistical Meetings in Minneapolis. Fellow. The H O Hartley Production Editor: Patrick Kelly Award is given annually by [email protected] Texas A&M University in his memory Associate Program Secretary: Maury Bramson [email protected] 4 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

More News of Members

News from Texas A&M University: AAPOR Innovators Awards Elaine Washington reports on these three IMS members. The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Statistics Department Welcomes New Department Head has presented the 2005 Innovators Award for public opinion Professor Simon J Sheather has been named the new Head of the research to two IMS members, Miron L Straf and Judith M Tanur, Department of Statistics, from March, who, together with Thomas Jabine and Roger Tourangeau, created moving from the Australian Graduate the Interdisciplinary Workshop on Cognitive Aspects of Survey School of Management at the University Methodology. of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia Miron L Straf is Deputy Director of the Division of Behavioral where he served as the head of Statistics and and Social Sciences and Education at the National Academies. He Operations Group as well as the Associate has over 30 years’ experience in teaching, research, and research Dean of Research. Among his achievements are: ranking in the management at the University of California, Berkeley; the top 200 mathematicians worldwide; the inaugural AGSM Award School of Economics and Political Science; the National Academy for Excellence in Research; and a 3-time recipient of the AGSM of Sciences; and the NSF. Dr Straf is a nationally recognized expert Alumni Association Award for Excellence in Teaching. and senior adviser in government statistics, the federal statistical Suojin Wang Wins Distinguished Achievement Award system, statistical evidence in the courts, and the use of information The Association of Former Students has selected statistics professor for public policy decision making. He received a PhD in statistics Suojin Wang as the recipient of a Distinguished Teaching Award. in 1969 from the University of Chicago. This award recognizes and rewards superior Judith M Tanur attended Antioch College and received a BS classroom teachers whose teaching meth- in psychology in 1957 and an MA in Mathematical Statistics in odologies, communication skills, and com- 1963, both from Columbia University. In 1972 she received a mitment to the learning process exemplify PhD in sociology from the State University of New York at Stony the meaning of teacher in its highest sense. Brook. She has taught at Stony Brook since 1967, where she is now Dr Wang is rated remarkably highly by Distinguished Teaching Professor. She is a Fellow of ASA and the undergraduate and graduate students throughout Texas A&M. An American Association of Arts and Sciences and an elected member undergraduate engineering student wrote, “I had taken no statistics of the International Statistical Institute. Dr Tanur is author or co- courses prior to entering Dr Wang’s class, and after I left I had a author of eight books and over 60 papers. deeper understanding and respect for not only the subject, but also The AAPOR Innovators Award is designed to recognize accom- the teacher who taught it so well.” plishments in the fields of public opinion and survey research that H Joseph Newton Receives Award in Administration occurred in the past ten years, or that had their primary impact on Statistics professor and Dean of the College the field during the past decade. These innovations could consist of Science, H Joseph Newton received of new theories, ideas, applications, methodologies or technologies. this year’s only Distinguished Award for The award can be given to individuals, groups or institutions. Administration from the Association of The 2005 Innovators Award honors the invention of a work- Former Students. This award recognizes shop of scientists from two different fields—cognitive psychology an administrator who has contributed to and survey methodology—to discuss the possibility that they could, the welfare of Texas A&M through outstanding administrative through sharing concepts and insights, improve their understanding service beyond the expectation of the position. In addition to his of their individual domains. AAPOR salutes this unusual gathering busy schedule as Dean, Dr Newton remains an active scholar and for its catalyzing effect on research on survey measurement. teacher, both in the classroom and as a mentor to graduate stu- The workshop has led to the creation of cognitive laboratories dents. Among his service activities, Dr Newton chairs the Research in federal statistical agencies and in many larger survey organiza- Environment Council, one of four university-wide councils that tions, the expansion of the survey community by the addition of were established in 2003 to afford faculty and academic leaders new researchers trained in cognitive psychology, the application greater influence in guiding the university’s development. One of of protocol analysis and cognitive interviewing techniques, and an his colleagues wrote, “Dr Newton has had a tremendously positive explosion of experimentation in question wording. impact on the College of Science and Texas A&M as a whole.” August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 5

Mark van der Laan named Myrto Lefkopoulou Distinguished Lecturer Sam Efromovich to speak at Abraham Wald Prize Ceremony in The Department of , Harvard School of Public Health, Sequential Analysis at JSM has named Mark van der Laan, University of California at Berkeley, Presented by Sequential Analysis Journal as the 2005 Myrto Lefkopoulou Distinguished Lecturer. Professor Tuesday, August 9, 2005: 12:30 - 2:00 pm van der Laan will present a lecture on Thursday, September 15 at Hilton Minneapolis, Room Conrad D Harvard School of Public Health. The title of the lecture is “History EVERYONE AT JSM 2005 IS INVITED TO ATTEND Adjusted Marginal Structural Models: Applications in AIDS Research”. Organizer and Chair: Nitis Mukhopadhyay, Editor of Sequential A reception will be held following the lecture. Analysis, University of Connecticut, Storrs The lectureship was established in perpetuity in memory of Dr 12:30-12:50: Award Ceremony Myrto Lefkopoulou, a faculty member and graduate of Harvard 12:55-1:40: Sequential Analysis Editor’s Special Invited Paper School of Public Health. Dr Lefkopoulou tragically died of cancer Speaker: Professor Sam Efromovich, Department of Mathematics in 1992 at the age of 34 after a courageous two-year battle. She was and Statistics, University of New Mexico: Sequential Nonparametric deeply beloved by friends, students and faculty. Curve Estimation and Wald’s Ideas: Theory and Applications Each year the Myrto Lefkopoulou Lectureship is awarded to a Abstract: The theory promising who has made contributions to either col- and methods of laborative or methodologic research in the applications of statistical sequential and methods to biology or medicine and/or has shown excellence in minimax infer- the teaching of biostatistics. Ordinarily, the lectureship is given to a ence, pioneered statistician within 15 years of receiving an earned doctorate. by Abraham Wald Previous recipients of the Lefkopoulou Memorial Lectureship in the 1940s, have have been Michael Boehnke, Ronald S Brookmeyer, Brad Carlin, shaped the way stat- Steven N Goodman, Trevor Hastie, Hans-Georg Mueller, Giovanni isticians view this field today. This lecture will aim at discussing Parmigiani, Kathryn Roeder, Louise Ryan, Danyu Lin, Marie Wald’s approaches via the modern theory and applications of Davidian, and Geert Molenberghs. nonparametric curve estimation. Recent results on the Oracle Nominate analysis and sharp minimax adaptive sequential estimation will be Nominations for next year’s lectureship are welcome and should be presented. Considered theoretical settings include density estima- sent to: tion and regression. Practical applications, whose discussion will Myrto Lefkopoulou Lecture Committee, be the primary topic of this lecture, include financial and civil Department of Biostatistics, engineering examples. Harvard School of Public Health, 1:40-2:00: Floor Discussion 655 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115. Sponsored by Taylor & Francis, Sequential Analysis Nominations should include a letter of nomination and a CV. Need more information? Please contact Nitis Mukhopadhyay The deadline for submission of nominations is March 15, 2006. [email protected] 6 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

OBITUARY: George Bernard Dantzig 1914–2005

GEORGE BERNARD DANTZIG, Professor work he was awarded the War Department Exceptional Service Emeritus of Operations Research and Medal. Computer Science at , He obtained his PhD in Mathematics from Berkeley in 1946. died on May 13, 2005, at the age of 90. His dissertation consisted of the solution to two problems: at least Dantzig’s most famous achievements — one of which, the generalized Neyman-Pearson Lemma, remains the formulation of linear programming, the notable. His path to this has become legendary, and purport- primal and dual optimization problems and edly inspired the recent film Good Will Hunting. their solution by the simplex method — One day Dantzig arrived late for Neyman’s graduate theory earned him many honors, including the class. He saw two problems written on the board which he assumed National Medal of Science in 1975. Dantzig, an IMS Fellow, were the day’s homework. Some weeks later he turned in solutions was also a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the to Neyman apologizing for his lateness and remarking that these National Academy of Science, and the American Academy of Arts problems “seemed harder to do than usual.” Indeed, Neyman had and Sciences, as well as the recipient of eight honorary degrees. He written down two major unsolved problems of the field at the time: is regarded by many as the “Father of Linear Programming”. the multivariate generalization of the Neyman-Pearson Lemma, While these aspects of his work lie outside of statistics, Dantzig and the non-existence of a non-trivial test for µ=0 in the classi- began his academic career as a statistician. After obtaining his cal Gaussian one sample problem whose power function did not MS in Mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1938, he depend on sigma. And the rest, as they say, is history. worked as a Junior Statistician at the Bureau of Labor Statistics Dantzig is survived by his wife Anne S Dantzig, his daughter until 1939, when he became ’s first American student Jessica Klass (who is married to Michael Klass, currently a faculty at Berkeley. member in the Berkeley Statistics Department), his sons David and From 1941–1946 his studies were perforce interrupted by the Paul Dantzig, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Second World War, during which he served as Head of the Combat The family requests that donations be made to the George B Analysis Branch, USAF Headquarters Statistical Control. For this Dantzig Dissertation Award, INFORMS, 7240 Parkway Drive, Suite 310, Hanover, MD 21076. Peter Bickel Department of Statistics, University of California at Berkeley Medallion Lecture Preview: Art Owen More information about the life of George Dantzig is available online A Quasi-Monte Carlo Metropolis Algorithm at http://www.informs.org/Prizes/whoisDantzig.html and at http:// Art’s lecture will be given at JSM on August 8, 2–3.30pm in MCC:200F. www.umass.edu/wsp/statistics/tales/dantzig.html Recent decades have brought many improvements to Monte Carlo (MC) methods. (MCMC) methods have greatly extended the applicability of MC techniques. Parallel efforts in quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) sampling have brought significant improvements in accuracy, improving the rate of con- INFORMS, the Institute for Operations Research and the vergence. This talk presents a combination of QMC and MCMC Management Sciences, sponsors the George B Dantzig Dissertation methods. Some QMC constructions give completely uniformly Award. This award, first presented in 1994, is given “for the best distributed (CUD) points. CUD points can be used to drive dissertation in any area of operations research and the management Metropolis-Hastings sampling and give consistent results. CUD sciences that is innovative and relevant to practice. The award was sampling is like using the entire period of a small random number established to encourage academic research that combines theory generator. Variance reductions as high as 200-fold have been and practice and stimulates greater interaction between doctoral observed in a example with QMC-MCMC. This students (and their advisors) and the world of practice.” is based on joint work with Seth Tribble. Open access article at The 2005 award deadline has just passed. See http://www. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0409596102v1 informs.org/Prizes/DantzigAward.html August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 7

OBITUARY: Adhir Kumar Basu Nominations Sought for Marvin Zelen Leadership Award in 1941–2005 Statistical Science The Department of Biostatistics at the ADHIR KUMAR NRC and NSERC (Canada), UGC (India) Harvard School of Public Health named BASU, Professor and others. Ross L Prentice, Fred Hutchinson Cancer of Statistics at He was a member of IMS, the Research Center, Public Health Sciences, the University of International Statistical Association, as the recipient of the 2005 Marvin Zelen Calcutta in India, the Bernoulli Society, Statistical Science Leadership Award in Statistical Science. and the former Chair of the Department Association, Academica Sinica, International Dr Prentice delivered a lecture entitled of Statistics, passed away peacefully on Society for Bayesian Analysis, Calcutta “Chronic Disease Prevention: Research April 25, 2005 at the age of 66. Basu made Statistical Association, Indian Statistical Strategies and Needs” on June 3 at Harvard important contributions to probability Association, Indian Statistical Institute, University. theory, mathematical statistics, statistical and others. He was a regular reviewer This annual award, supported by col- inference and time series analysis. for American Mathematical Review and leagues, friends and family, was established Adhir Kumar Basu received his Zentralblatt MATH. He was associated with to honor Dr Marvin Zelen’s long and bachelor degree from the Presidency the editorial board of various journals of distinguished career as a statistician and College, Calcutta (under the University of repute and he was the founder editor of the his major role in shaping the field of Calcutta), a ’s degree from University journal Stochastic Modeling and Application. biostatistics. of Calcutta and Purdue University, and He wrote two books: ‘Measure Theory and The award recognizes an individual in doctoral degree from Purdue University Probability’ (Prentice Hall of India) and government, industry, or academia, who by under the supervision of Y S Chow. During ‘Stochastic Processes for Statistics’ (Narosa, virtue of his/her outstanding leadership has his career he worked in many institutions New Delhi, India). He was also one of greatly impacted the theory and practice around the world, including in Canada the editors for the Proceeding Volume of of statistical science. While individual Queen’s University, Laurantian University, the Third International Calcutta Triennial accomplishments are considered, the most University of Regina, McMaster University, Symposium (). He distinguishing criterion is the awardees con- and University of Ottawa; CIMAT in guided 6 PhD dissertations. tribution to the creation of an environment Mexico; University of Brasilia in Brazil; and He is warmly remembered by his in which statistical science and its applica- in the US, University of Illinois, Chicago students, colleagues and friends as being an tions have flourished. The award recipient and University of California, Santa Barbara; excellent academician. Basu is survived by will deliver a public lecture on statistical and the Indian Statistical Institute. He his wife Bandana and son Rick. May his science at the Harvard School of Public was a faculty member at the University of departed soul rest in peace. Health and will be presented with a citation Calcutta from 1982-2004. and an honorarium. Adhir Basu began his research in the Debasis Bhattacharya, Nominations for next year’s award, to be area of probability theory, in particular Visva-Bharati University and given in June 2006, should be sent to the invariance theory, law of iterated logarithm, Sugata Sen Roy, University of Calcutta Marvin Zelen Leadership Award Committee, rate of convergence to CLT and others. Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School Later he developed his interest in the area of of Public Health, 655 Huntington Avenue, density estimation, time series analysis, and Boston, MA 02115. Past IMS Bulletin Editors statistical inference. His research interest Nominations should include a letter encompassed both independent and depen- Leo Katz (1972-74); Dorian describing the contributions of the candi- dent variables. He published more than Feldman (1975-80); William C date, specifically highlighting the criteria eighty research papers, the first of which for the award, and a curriculum vitae. Guenther (1981-86); George P H was in the Annals of Mathematical Statistics Supporting letters and materials would be in 1971. Styan (1987-92); Susan R Wilson extremely helpful to the committee. Basu was a Fulbright scholar and (1992-97); Dipak K Dey (1998-2001) All nominations must be received by received research fellowships from NSF, November 1, 2005. 8 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

Annual Survey reports rise in temp positions

Nicole Lazar reports: The Annual Survey of the Mathematical according to type of employment. The highest response rate was Sciences is directed by a joint committee of the AMS, ASA, IMS among those employed in US academic institutions. The lowest and MAA. The 2004 Annual Survey represents the forty-eighth response rate was among those employed in non-US, non-academic in an annual series begun in 1957 by the American Mathematical institutions (62% for the former versus 38% for the latter). Society. The 2004 Annual Survey Second Report has been pub- A disturbing new employment trend is that among the 449 new lished in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society. The PhD recipients starting jobs in the US in Fall 2004, slightly more second report updates the first report with additional data (40 than half (229) were in “temporary” positions. This is the first time additional new PhD recipients in 2003-2004), as well as providing in the last five years for which the number of temporary positions information from a survey of the new PhD recipients. Some high- is greater than the number of permanent positions. Of the 229 lights are shown below. in temporary jobs, 81 reported that they could not find a suitable Full copies of all reports published since 1996 are available at permanent position. http://www.ams.org/employment/surveyreports.html. Among those employed in the US in permanent positions, the There were 1081 new doctoral recipients in the Mathematical percentages employed in academic positions rose steadily from 59% Sciences from US universities in 2003–04. This is the highest num- in Fall 2000 to a high of 76% in Fall 2003, decreasing slightly to ber since 2000–01. Probability, Statistics and Biostatistics doctor- 72% this past year. Correspondingly, among those with permanent ates continue to form the largest group, with 346 (32%). The next positions the proportion in business and industry was 41% in Fall largest group is Algebra and Number Theory, with 151 new PhDs. 2000 and 28% in Fall 2004, a slight rise over Fall 2003. In this summary, we focus on the new data reported from the Of the 229 individuals with temporary employment in the US, Employment Experiences of New Doctoral Recipients (EENDR) 97% this year were in academia. This is higher than the proportion survey. These data are not broken down by field of study, so we in recent years, but not dramatically so. report on the figures as a whole, with no separate discussion for The median age of new doctoral recipients was 31 years, while statistics. the mean was 33 years. This represents a slight increase over the 914 of the 1041 recipients from the first report had known previous six years, in which the median has generally been 30 and addresses. These were sent the EENDR survey in October of 2004; the mean 32. 525 responded. As might be expected, response rates differed

In Other News: More SSC Awards SSC Gold Medal SSC Pierre Robillard Award advances this methodology by using proba- The Statistical Society of Canada (SSC) Dr Zeny Zhe-Qing Feng has been awarded bilistic modeling to provide new and better has awarded the 2005 SSC Gold Medal the Pierre Robillard Prize for 2005 for her threshold levels for several linkage test sta- to Dr David Andrews of the University of PhD thesis “Statistical Methods in Affected tistics. Dr Feng is currently a postdoctoral Toronto. The award is made to a person Sib Pairs Analysis”. The thesis, which student at Yale University. She plans who has made substantial contributions to is co-supervised by Professors Mary to continue her research on problems statistics, or to probability, either to math- Thomson and Jiahua Chen, concerns in the fast-moving field of statistical ematical developments or in applied work. the analysis of data on Identical By genetics. Professor Andrews was awarded the Gold Descent sharing of gene forms by The Robillard Prize is awarded Medal for his pioneering research contribu- pairs of siblings affected by an inher- annually by the Society to the doc- tions in the areas of robustness, graphics itable disease. toral student defending the best the- and symbolic computation, for his leader- Through a methodology in statistical sis in the previous year. The criteria used in ship at the University of Toronto and in genetics called linkage analysis, affected sib the assessment include the originality of the the Canadian statistics profession, and for pair data help scientists to determine the ideas and techniques, the possible applica- inspiring many students with his infectious approximate positions on chromosomes of tions and their treatment and the potential teaching and his love of statistical science. genes contributing to the disease. The thesis impact on the statistical sciences. August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 9

AB CD springeronline.com Springer for Statistics 4th S+Functional Data Analysis User's The Basics of S-PLUS EDITION Guide A. Krause, M. Olson, Pharma AG, D. B. Clarkson, C. Fraley, C. C. Gu, Insightful Corpora- Basel, Switzerland tion, Seattle, USA; J. O. Ramsay, McGill University, This book explains the basics of S-PLUS in a clear style Montreal, Canada and has been updated to cover important changes like S+Functional Data Analysis is the fi rst commercial the inclusion of S Language Version 4, Trellis graphics, a object oriented package for exploring, modeling, and graphical user interface, and many useful tips and tricks. analyzing functional data. FDA diff ers from traditional The fourth edition is based on S-PLUS Version 7.0 for data analytic techniques in a number of ways. Functions Windows and UNIX and has been revised accordingly. can be evaluated at any point in their domain. Deriva- The book is well suited for self-study and as a textbook. tives and integrals, which may provide better information (e.g. graphical) than Contents � Introduction. – Graphical user interfaces. – A fi rst session. – A the original data, are easily computed and used in multivariate and other second session. – Graphics. – Trellis graphics. – Exploring data. – Statistical functional analytic methods. This book provides documentation for the S-PLUS modeling. – Programming. – Object-Oriented programming. – Input and module on functional data analysis. It will supplement our two books on this output. – Tips and tricks. – S-PLUS internals. – Information sources on and topic by Ramsay/Silverman. around S-PLUS. – R. – Bibliography. Contents � Introduction. – Basis Objects and Operations. – Functional Data Objects and Operations. – Linear Diff erential Operators and Smoothing. – 4th ed. 2005. XXII, 444 p. 31 illus. (Statistics and Computing) Softcover Functional Registration. – Functional Linear Models. – Functional Generalized ISBN 0-387-26109-5 � € 49,95 | £ 38,50 Linear Models. – Functional Principal Components. – Canonical Correlation. – Functional Cluster Analysis. – Principal Diff erential Analysis. Modeling Longitudinal Data 2005. XII, 206 p. 79 illus. Softcover R. E. Weiss, UCLA School of Public Health, Los ISBN 0-387-24969-9 � € 39,95 | £ 29,50 Angeles,USA Covers both the regression modeling aspect and the Mathematical Statistics: covariance modeling issues. The coverage includes Exercises and Solutions initial data exploration, model specifi cation and building and inference. The book has many fi gures and J. Shao, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA tables illustrating longitudinal data and numerous Contains over 500 exercises and solutions covering homework problems. The associated web site contains topics in statistical theory essential for graduate many longitudinal data sets, examples of computer students. On the other hand, this is a stand-alone book, code, and labs to re-enforce the material. since exercises and solutions are comprehensible inde- Contents � Introduction to Longitudinal Data. – Plots. – Simple Analyses. – pendently of their source. Readers are assumed to have Critiques of Simple Analyses. – The Multivariate Normal Linear Model. – Tools a good knowledge in advanced calculus. and Con-cepts. – Specifying Covariates. – Modeling the Covariance Matrix. – Contents � Probability Theory. – Fundamentals of Random Eff ects Models. – Residuals and Case Diagnostics. – Discrete Statistics. – Unbiased Estimation. – Estimation in Parametric Models. – Longitudinal Data. – Missing Data. – Analyzing Two Longitudinal Variables. – Estimation in Nonparametric Models. – Hypothesis Tests. – Confi dence Sets. Further Reading.

2005. XXVIII, 359 p. Softcover 2005. XXIV, 432 p. (Springer Texts in Statistics) Hardcover ISBN 0-387-24970-2 � € 39,95 | £ 29,50 ISBN 0-387-40271-3 � € 66,95 | £ 51,50

Easy Ways to Order � Write: Springer Distribution Center, Haberstrasse 7, 69126 Heidelberg, Germany � Call: +49 (0) 6221-345-0 � Fax: +49 (0) 6221-345-4229 � Email: [email protected] � All € and £ prices are net prices subject to local VAT, e.g. in Germany 7%. All prices exclusive of carriage charges. Prices and other details are subject to change without notice. 011887x 10 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

The magazine of the Royal Statistical Society Edited by Helen Joyce Significance, launched in 2004, is a quarterly magazine for anyone interested in statistics and the analysis and interpretation of data. It aims to communicate and demonstrate, in an entertaining and thought-provoking way, the practical use of statistics in all walks of life and to show how statistics benefit society. Articles are largely non-technical and hence accessible Subscribe for only £25 and appealing, not only to members of the profession, but to all users of statistics. Plus Great Discounts As well as promoting the discipline and covering topics of professional relevance, for Students Significance contains a mixture of statistics in the news, case-studies, reviews of existing and newly developing areas of statistics, the application of techniques Members of the Royal Statistical Society receive in practice and problem solving, all with an international flavour. Significance as part of their membership www.rss.org.uk www.blackwellpublishing.com/SIGN

Key articles available OnlineEarly from 2005 SERIES A: Statistics in Society The Journal Edited by P. Lynn and G. Verbeke Statistics in Society publishes papers that demonstrate clear statistical thinking on issues of importance to society. of the Royal www.blackwellpublishing.com/RSSA Statistical Society SERIES B: Statistical Methodology Edited by R. Henderson and A. T. A. Wood Now Ranked in the ISI Social Sciences Statistical Methodology has a long tradition of publishing work at the leading edge of methodological development, 5 issues Citation Index with a strong emphasis on relevance to statistical practice. per year www.blackwellpublishing.com/RSSB Visit the journal homepages for further information including submission guidelines, SERIES C: Applied Statistics Now Edited by S. G. Gilmour and C. A. Glasbey subscription information and details of how to 5 issues Applied Statistics of international repute for both inside and outside the academic world. per year obtain a free sample copy. www.blackwellpublishing.com/RSSC August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 11

Bayesian Analysis and Electronic Publication

The International Society for Bayesian mixtures”; C Holmes and L Held: “Bayesian * Articles are submitted in PDF format Analysis (ISBA) is launching a new journal, auxiliary variable models for binary and and are accessible to relevant referees Bayesian Analysis. The appearance of this multinomial regression”; L House, M Clyde and editorial board members on the journal should be of interest both to people and Y Huang: “Bayesian Identification of system web site. who study and use Bayesian statistical Differential Gene Expression Induced by * Articles are tracked by a unique article methods, and to those who are concerned Metals in Human Bronchial Epithelial Cells” reference number, and authors may use with electronic publication of journals. this number to check on the status of a Bayesian Analysis is electronic and freely Electronic publication & responsive refereeing submitted article. available at http://ba.stat.cmu.edu. It is Slow refereeing has been a chronic problem * Editors, AEs and referees may view a dedicated to rapid editorial turnaround in statistics. As Carroll (2001, Biometrics, list of the articles assigned to them, and and publication of manuscripts. Its found- 57: 1-6) has argued, fixing this requires a may then examine the history and cur- ing editors are Alicia Carriquiry, Phil fundamental change in attitude. Bayesian rent status of any of these articles. Dawid, David Heckerman, Xiao-Li Meng, Analysis is attempting to force some degree * Editors have access to an editorial load Christian Robert, Fabrizio Ruggeri, and of change by monitor so that AEs can be picked Dalene Stangl, with Michael Jordan joining (1) using a large board of editors and taking account of load over the past 12 the board later this year. associate editors who are committed to months. handling papers reasonably quickly, * When an editor, AE, or referee does not Content of the Journal (2) creating an electronic manuscript-han- respond quickly the system automati- Bayesian Analysis seeks to publish a wide dling system that both reduces book- cally sends an email reminder, with a range of articles that demonstrate or discuss keeping overhead for editors and allows copy sent to the editor and/or AE and Bayesian methods in some theoretical or them to track progress easily; and also to a managing editor in charge of applied context. The journal welcomes (3) putting in place some oversight proce- identifying delinquency. submissions involving presentation of new dures devoted specifically to identifying * Letters to authors are composed by computational and statistical methods; and handling bad situations. Editors, checked by the Editor-in-Chief, reviews, criticism, and discussion of exist- A reasonable goal is to provide reports to and sent to authors using the system; ing approaches; historical perspectives; authors within 10 weeks of submission on then archived by the system, accessible description of important scientific or policy at least 80% of articles submitted. We have to relevant past and future reviewers. application areas; case studies; and methods achieved this goal for the approximately 50 * The system allows editors, AEs, and for experimental design, data collection, papers handled to date. A key component referees to compose messages for other data sharing, or data mining. Evaluation of of the process is our manuscript-handling users of the system and archives all such submissions will be based on importance system, which was designed to reduce the correspondence. This is intended to help of content and effectiveness of communica- organizational effort required of editors and with organization of all internal email tion. associate editors and, in addition, relieve the discussion concerning an article. We currently anticipate the following editorial assistant from most of these chores * The system maintains logs of all edito- articles will appear in the first issue: S as well (thereby reducing the assistant’s job rial activities related to each article. Fienberg: “When did Bayesian Inference to only a few hours per week, and making * We expect publication on the website become ‘Bayesian’?”; A Gelfand, J Silander, the cost of running the journal very small). to occur with minimal delay (in the S Wu, A Latimer, P Lewis, A Rebelo and Because ISBA is a small society, we could order of 1 day) once the authors have M Holder: “Explaining Species Distribution not afford a commercial system with the submitted their final, corrected article in Patterns Through Hierarchical Modeling” characteristics we envisioned. We therefore LaTeX, with figures in postscript. with commentary by J Hoeting and J decided to create our own. Written in PHP/ We intend to make this system available to VerHoef; J Andrade and A O’Hagan, MySQL, and constructed with supervisory others who wish to do their own editing “Bayesian robustness modelling using regularly advice from our Electronic Production and publishing on the web. varying distributions”; D Blei and M Jordan, Manager, Pantelis Vlachos, the system has Rob Kass “Variational inference for Dirichlet process the following features: Editor-in-Chief, Bayesian Analysis 12 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

Terence’s Stuff: Going to China

Terry Speed have a positive impact on teaching and experiences and knowledge to share. is off to Beijing research trends in China. I expect that the One specific topic of interest to me for the first joint IMS visitors will meet this challenge. There is interdisciplinary research. This is hard meeting between will be presentations by people from over enough to get going in the West, and it IMS and the 40 universities and institutes in China, most seems harder still in China. Attitudes, Chinese Society of which are quite unfamiliar to Western interpersonal relations, general openness, of Probability and Statistics. participants. So we can all learn about the and patterns of authority all play a role in research in our field that goes on in China, getting started and continuing such col- As I write this, I am preparing for my and the circumstances under which it is laborative activities. I’m looking forward to departure to China, to participate in the conducted. hearing about Chinese experience in this first meeting of the IMS and the Chinese Many of the IMS visitors left China to area, and to learning whether any of my Society of Probability and Statistics (CSPS) study in Europe or North America, and experience is relevant. In a different direc- in Beijing. I’ll be representing the IMS stayed working there, and we can expect tion, I’m eagerly anticipating my visit to the formally at one or more dinners, and I’ll be their contributions to the meeting and Beijing Genome Institute, where I hope to doing so informally the rest of the time. interactions to be especially important, as see the fruits of their astonishing progress In both formal and informal situations they are familiar with ‘both worlds’. first-hand. They started from scratch in I’ll be telling everyone how delighted I The leadership of Chinese statistics is 1998, contributed one percent of the am to be there, to be able to strengthen undergoing a transformation, with people human genome sequence three years later, the IMS’s ties with what can only be whose education and training predate the and a produced a complete rice genome described as the world’s largest producer Cultural Revolution (~1966–76) coming shortly after that. of probabilists and statisticians. That will up to retirement. The gap caused by the Finally, I expect to see and discuss with be easy: I have many friends — current and Cultural Revolution has long been evident, Chinese friends some of the matters we read former students and colleagues — who grew but it is not the only one. Relatively few of about in our newspapers, such as the posi- up and did their initial statistical training the students who left China after the mid- tive and negative aspects of China’s remark- in China, many of whom work there now. 1980s to train in ROW have returned, and able economic progress, and I’ll certainly be I really do welcome the opportunity to see so the gap extends well beyond the Cultural wondering about human rights, and where and hear them on their own turf, to par- Revolution. China is going in the near future. ticipate in one of their conferences, to be in Of course, there are first-rate researchers Whatever we think about these matters, the minority for a change, and to be their in China: the breadth and depth of the ignoring them is not an option. Chinese guest, one among many others from ROW conference program testifies to that. But probabilists and statisticians are a huge (the Rest Of the World, a team I play for no country can expect component of our profession, and frequently, in different places). And I look to build a world-class China is a huge forward to enjoying the food, the surround- research base in a field presence on our ings, and the culture more generally. (The if many of the best planet. heat and the traffic are another matter.) and brightest in that But what else is there to be gained from field leave for gradu- the CSPS meeting the IMS, apart from ate work overseas, a warm feeling, and outstanding tourism and never return… opportunities for us from ROW? though this exodus is Well, we have much to learn from each slowing, and perhaps other. My overwhelming impression is that even reversing. None the locals are concerned with learning about of these issues is the latest, most exciting and important unique to China; research in probability and statistics from many of us from ROW, in the hope that this knowledge will ROW will have August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 13

Meet the Members Continuing our regular slot, some IMS members reveal a little of themselves…

Robert Adler Jianqing Fan Professor Professor of Statistics and Financial Technion–Israel Institute of Technology Engineering How many years have you been a member of Princeton University the IMS? How many years have you been a member of 32: I joined in 1973, the year I started my the IMS? 17 years PhD, and as a consequence have full sets of If you could have any other occupation, assum- the Annals of Probability, Applied Probability, ing money is not an object, what would it be? and Statistics. The cover on Ann Prob Vol 1, I love my own profession. But if I had to, I would choose Issue 1 has nearly fallen off by now — it was Economics as my profession. a great opening issue and Ron Pyke did a Where is your favorite place to travel and why? fantastic job putting it together. Rome and Paris. They have my favoriate Italian and French foods If you could have any other occupation, assum- and artitecture. ing money is not an object, what would it be? The most useful invention is... Given that the only assumption that I am …the mobile phone as I am always happy to talk with my friends. allowed to change here is financial, and I I don’t like emails: they are boring. am not allowed to change my personality, Tell us something that others might find surprising about you? abilities, early education etc, I guess I would I have taken only one midterm exam in my life… and got 0 on have to say that rather than being a mere my hypothesis testing class at the midterm! (after taking a more probabilist, I would choose to be an incred- advanced Le Cam type of asymptotic class with grade A+). ibly rich probabilist. Where is your favorite place to travel and why? Fadoua Balabdaoui Definitely Jerusalem. We take almost all our holidays there. There Doctor, Institut für Mathematische Stochastik, is really no other city in the world that has as wide a blend of Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, cultures, religions and peoples, with history that calls out at every Germany turn. On every visit we find new things to see and do. Sometimes Member of the IMS for less than a year they are new because they have only just been built, but more often If you could have any other occupation, assuming they are “new” because they have only recently been uncovered, see- money is not an object, what would it be? ing the light for the first time in two or three thousand years. Arabic teacher The most useful invention is... Where is your favorite place to travel and why? …definitely the television remote control, since it allows me to Morocco, because I still have a lot to learn about my country change channels without having to put my laptop down. Aside The most useful invention is... from that, it has brought me fame and world renown. …the pen Tell us something that others might find surprising about you. Tell us something that others might find surprising about you I receive many letters each year from school students the world I am shy over asking me about my invention of the TV remote (cf. “fame and world renown” above). Unfortunately, it was another Robert Adler who came up with the idea (as well as many others - he was Not wanted: your money a prolific inventor, with over 150 US Patents) when working for Zenith in the 1950s. (…if you’re a student, that is) IMS membership is free for students Join today: www.imstat.org/membership/student.htm 14 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

Profile: Martin Barlow, FRS

Terry Lyons writes: Martin Barlow comes he was awarded a Royal Society University from a family with a long tradition of Research Fellowship which he held until distinction and academic life. He has kept he moved to his current institution, the with this tradition, and is now one of the University of British Columbia, in 1992. world’s most distinguished probabilists. Over this period, Barlow’s scientific career Martin started to learn mathematics developed substantially into new areas, and seriously as an undergraduate at Trinity he is recognised today as one of the leading College, Cambridge, where he learned to specialists in the study of diffusions on frac- tackle ‘impossible’ problems under the tal-like domains. Fractal domains are the guidance of Béla Bollobás. On graduating, mathematical model for an environment he went on to take the diploma in statistics where are the usual space-time scaling rela- and then for his PhD, he left the ivory tion breaks down, and as one moves to fine towers to work with David Williams in and finer scales there seemed to be bigger Swansea. This was a critical and brave move, and bigger obstacles. It is already remark- but as David Williams was, and is, one of able that one can develop a mathematical so on, into very effective use in describing the strongest probabilists that the UK has theory for diffusion processes in such percolation behaviour. ever had, it was certainly not a sacrifice in environments as there are no local charts Martin Barlow is a charming and the scientific sense. In the late Seventies or manifold structures to be used. But by thoughtful person. He has had a number stochastic processes were still in an early exploiting the recent developments on heat of distinguished graduate students who stage of development and Martin played an kernel bounds which were developed ini- are themselves distinguished, and has been important part in developing the subject as tially by Varopoulos and Davies to deal with recognised in many ways. For example, he we know it today. In particular his thesis is more classical spaces, Barlow obtained deep was invited to speak at the International one of the origins of the concept of enlarge- results on the behaviour of these anomalous Congress in Kyoto (1990), and received ment of filtration. This topic remains of diffusions. These results have potential to the Rollo Davidson Prize in 1984, and the importance today: for example, it can be affect our understanding of diffusion of Junior Whitehead Prize of the London used to discuss the different amounts of contaminants in soil, transport properties of Mathematical Society in 1990. He was information which various participants in a polymers, and diffusions on critical percola- elected a fellow of the Royal Society of financial market might possess. tion clusters. Martin’s recent work on the Canada in 1998. Martin has served the IMS After a postdoc with James Taylor in last of these applications is amazing for the on the Committee on Nominations and as Liverpool, Martin returned to Cambridge way that it brings methods and technolo- Editor of Electronic Communications in with a Prize Research Fellowship at Trinity gies developed to describe the continuous Probability. He was elected IMS Fellow in and then a University Lectureship. In 1985 setting of PDEs, Harnack inequalities, and 1991.

Call for Proposals for BIRS 2007 Scientific Programme Nassif Ghoussoub, BIRS Scientific Director, writes: The Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery (BIRS) is now accepting proposals for its 2007 programme. Full information, guidelines, and online forms are available at the website, http://www.pims.math.ca/birs BIRS is aiming for a 48-week scientific programme in 2007. Each week, the station will be running either a full workshop (40 people for 5 days) or two half-workshops (20 people for 5 days). As usual, BIRS provides full meals, accommodation, and research facilities at no cost to the organizers and to the invited participants, in a setting conducive to research and collaboration. The deadline for 5-day Workshop and Summer School proposals is October 14, 2005. In addition BIRS will operate its Research in Teams and Focused Research Groups programmes, which allow smaller groups of researchers to get together for several weeks of uninterrupted work at the station. Details at the Submit proposals online at the address above. August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 15

Profile: David Spiegelhalter, FRS

David Spiegelhalter has been elected as a His work on probabilistic expert systems Fellow of the Royal Society, acknowledg- has made probability and statistics indis- ing his many pioneering contributions pensable within modern applied Artificial to theoretical and practical aspects of Intelligence (AI) and machine learning. statistical methodology, including Bayesian At a very early stage, David had the idea approaches to clinical trials, innovative that reasoning under uncertainty could contributions to artificial intelligence, essentially be seen as a problem of Bayesian development of Bayesian - statistical inference, and statistical thinking ling and leadership in the BUGS software could be applied to central issues, using project, as well as contributions to the area ideas and tools from graphical models. of performance monitoring and the associ- Before David entered this field, probability ated public debate. in AI was a game for “a few hairy intellectu- David studied mathematics for his als”. The developments have been reinforced for a large number of statisticians to use undergraduate degree at Keble College, by strong groups of researchers in the Bayesian graphical models in their research Oxford, continuing at the University of USA and elsewhere, but David’s initiative, work. But, more fundamentally, it repre- London for a MSc and PhD, the latter inspiration and pioneering work has been sents a completely new approach to tackling awarded in 1978. In 1981 he was appointed an important condition for this to happen. the process of interpreting data using Statistician at the Medical Research Council Probability and statistics have successfully statistics, enabling the analysis of problems Biostatistics Unit, and promoted to Senior penetrated the area and David has been a of a different complexity, corresponding to Scientist in 1986: this post is still the major contributor demands of modern applied sciences. main base of his professional activities. Another of David’s principal achieve- It is always an inspiration to be in Over the years he has served in numerous ments is the recognition that the successful David’s company. Apart from being a pleas- committees and received several awards, developments in AI could subsequently be ant and entertaining person, he has a never including the Guy Medals in Bronze and fed back again to general statistics, combin- failing sense of what are the important Silver, the ASA award for “Outstanding ing modular model specifications with issues which need consideration and what Application” (jointly with Steffen Lauritzen) Markov chain Monte Carlo methods of are less important details. and an Honorary Doctorate from Aalborg computation, using graphical models. The In his spare time he is a frequent trekker University, Denmark. tangible representation of this achievement and has recently begun playing with stained is the software BUGS and several variants glass art (see the Latin Square stained glass and descendants of it. This has changed sta- window, below left). His personal home tistical practice. The change is partly due to page contains more information on these the software itself, which makes it possible activities.

Royal Society of Canada elects new Fellows The Royal Society of Canada (RSC), the Canadian Academy of the Sciences and Humanities, has elected sixty new Fellows and three Foreign Fellows to its ranks. Only one of these new Fellows works in the field of statistics. Ray Hilborn (School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle) has made important contributions to the advancement of science by his pioneering work in the statistical analysis of fisheries. His David’s stained glass “Latin Square” is the pattern of the work has allowed the quantitatively reliable assessment of stocks and effective management first 8 x 8 latin square in Fisher and Yates statistical tables, 1938. The idea is “stolen” from the memorial window to policies. He developed modern statistical methods that allowed analysis of complex ecologi- RA Fisher in Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. It cal systems. He has used modern computational methods to compare complex models with looks much better in color! Check this and David’s other designs at http://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/personal/ biological data. Election to the RSC is the highest honour that can be attained by scholars, davids/glass/index.htm artists and scientists in Canada. 16 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

Santa Barbara: Report on SPA05

Raya Feldman was Chair of the Organising Committee for the 30th Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications (SPA). The meeting was held June 26–July 1, with a one-day Workshop on Stochastic

Models in Systems and Molecular Biology on this page: Ian Carlson Photos held June 26 (see page 17). The 30th Conference on Stochastic Some of the Invited Speakers at SPA [l-r] Balint Toth, Ruth Williams (filling in for Vlada Limic who was unable to attend), Processes and their Applications took place Nina Gantert, Alain-Sol Sznitman, Jean-Francois Le Gall, Leonid Mytnik, Jean Bertoin, János Engländer, Peter Glynn. at the University of California at Santa A total of 97 talks were were delivered pstat.ucsb.edu/projects/spa05/ Barbara. This annual international meeting at the meeting, including a Levy Lecture Participants enjoyed strolling in down- was held under auspices of the Bernoulli delivered by Jean Bertoin (Paris VI), town Santa Barbara on Monday evening Society and was co-sponsored by the IMS. two IMS Medallion Lectures presented and relaxed during the conference banquet This was the first SPA meeting featuring by Jean-Francois Le Gall (Paris VI) and held at the Santa Barbara Natural History two IMS Medallion Speakers, a win-win Alain-Sol Sznitman (ETH Zurich), 12 SPA Museum on Thursday. Wednesday after- innovation both for the SPA meetings and invited lectures delivered by distinguished noon was devoted to informal interactions for Medallion Lecturers doing their research probabilists, and over 80 contributed talks. and excursions, of which hiking in the in probability. The papers presented were an interesting Santa Ynez Range and a Santa Ynez Winery The meeting gathered about 150 par- mix of theoretical and applied topics with tour were the most popular. ticipants from 27 countries, including over almost half of the contributing talks in The conference owes an enormous 40 graduate students and many young par- the areas of stochastic analysis, stochastic debt to our generous financial sponsors: ticipants. The sea of young faces caused one control, and financial applications. Other The US National Science Foundation, The of the more seasoned participants to com- major areas discussed included random USA Army Research Office, IMS, Elsevier ment with satisfaction about the healthy matrices, stochastic modeling in physics Publishing Company, College of Letters and state of the field. At the opening session, and biology, limit theorems, stochastic Science (UCSB), Division of Mathematical, UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang welcomed networks, extremes and path properties of Life and Physical Sciences (UCSB), and the participants to UCSB. Next, there was stochastic processes, time series, long-range three UCSB Departments: Economics, a dramatic moment when David Aldous, dependence and heavy-tails, information Mathematics, and Statistics and Applied the Chair of the Loeve Prize Committee, theory, filtering and estimation. Abstracts of Probability. We are also indebted to Sally opened a sealed envelope and revealed the the lectures as well as a photo gallery from Vito and her staff of the UCSB Conference name of the 2005 Loeve Prize recipient: the meeting and other details are available Center for doing an outstanding job with Wendelin Werner. at the conference web site at http://www. the local arrangements.

Participants enjoyed a conference banquet at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (below), where some took a stroll through the butterfly exhibit (right) August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 17

Report on Stochastic Models in Molecular and Systems Biology Workshop: a satellite event to the SPA’05 meeting Guillaume Bonnet, UC Santa Barbara, reports: A satellite one- scale numerical simulation methods for models of biochemical day workshop on Stochastic Models in Molecular and Systems reactions. Johan Paulsson(Cambridge) and Rudy Guanawan Biology took place on Sunday, June 26. (UC Santa Barbara) talked about mathematical and engineering The event, featuring six invited talks, was a great success methods for the analysis of such models while Michael Samoilov gathering more than 55 participants. Although a large majority (HHMI/UC Berkeley/LBNL) covered methodological aspects. of the attendees came to Santa Barbara for the SPA meeting, a Applied probabilists, John Fricks (UNC and Penn State) and good fraction of workshop participants arrived specifically for the Samuel Kou (Harvard), presented respectively an analysis of a workshop, and included computer scientists, chemical engineers, model for molecular motion and statistical methods for single and biophysicists — atypical attendees of a molecule experiments. stochastic processes meeting. Speakers from the workshop on Stochastic Models in The principal goal of the workshop Molecular Biology and Systems Biology [l–r] Rudiyanto The speakers and the participants Gunawan, Johan Paulsson, Michael Samoilov, Linda was to initiate interest in probability were a mixture of engineers, applied Petzold, John Fricks, Samuel Kou (photo: Ruth Williams) community on these challenging biologi- probabilists, and biophysicists. A very cal problems, and build interdisciplinary important area of research today, and cen- interactions. The many informal discus- tral to systems biology, is the understand- sions that took place at lunchtime and ing of regulatory networks in individual during refreshment breaks on the sunny cells. terrace of the Marine Science Building An opening talk by Linda Petzold at UCSB suggest that there is reason for (UC Santa Barbara) gave an excellent optimism about future of these interac- overview of the state of the art in multi- tions.

Letter to the Editor Letters on any issue of interest to IMS members are welcome. Email your letters to the Editor at [email protected]. Some small print: the Editor’s decision is final; we may edit your letter before publication; publication does not necessarily imply endorsement of the opinions expressed therein, and the IMS Bulletin and its publisher do not accept any responsibility for them. Book Editions: New, but not necessarily Improved editions because of the desire to correct errors, improve presenta- Dear Editor tion, or change topics covered, based on the experience of users of We have become increasingly concerned about a fairly common the original version. But if the author can’t get it right by the third practice in the textbook publishing business. New editions are edition, he/she should give up. The decision to publish a new edi- published on a regular cycle, with a period as short as four years, tion should be based on pedagogy, not money. with little if any consideration of whether these new editions are To put some pressure on publishers to adopt what we consider a justified on academic grounds. We understand that new book sales more responsible approach to this issue, the undergraduate studies decrease in years following publication of new editions, as used committee of the UCLA Mathematics Department, at its meeting copies become more available. Given the very high prices of new of June 7, 2005, adopted the following resolution: mathematics texts, it is not surprising that students often choose to Whenever one of our textbooks appears in a new edition beyond the buy used copies. To fight the reduction of income to publishers and third, if there is no evidence that it represents a significant peda- authors, new editions appear for no apparent reason. This practice gogical improvement over the previous edition, the Mathematics costs students money, and forces often trivial but irritating changes Department will immediately start a search for a replacement text.” in course outlines. At the same meeting, we decided to change the text mentioned This letter is prompted by the announcement that a particular in the first paragraph above. This text has also been used by the text we have been using for a number of years is now going into the UCLA Statistics Department. Robert Gould, who is my counter- seventh edition. Successive editions of this text have appeared every part in that department, has endorsed this letter. four years for some time. In our view, they have gotten worse rather Sincerely than better, because of the inclusion of more examples and verbiage omas M. Liggett that apparently are only intended to justify each new edition. Undergraduate Vice Chair of Mathematics We have no problem with books that go into second and third University of California at Los Angeles 18 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

IMS Meetings around the world Minneapolis: Joint Statistical Meetings 2005 IMS Co-sponsored Meeting: 2005 Joint Statistical Meetings (including the 68th IMS Annual Meeting) August 7–11, 2005 Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis, MN http://www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2005 UPDATED Key Dates from www.amstat.org/meetings • July 1–21: Advance registration (increased Program fees now apply) The JSM 2005 Preliminary Program is available at http://www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2005/ • July 12: Final PDF program available onlineprogram. The printed version reflects the program as it was on May 16. Any changes • July 14: Hotel reservations deadline made to the program after that date are reflected in the online version, which is the most • August 6–11: On-site registration accurate program to refer to at all times. Registration Registration and hotel bookings are now available at the JSM website. For IMS members registration costs $280 ($395 for non-members of IMS, ASA, SSC or WNAR/ENAR). The ‘Early Bird’ deadline has passed.

IMS SESSIONS: IMS Invited Program Chair: David Madigan [email protected]

Wald Lectures: Srinivasa Varadhan (Courant Institute, New York University): Large Deviations in Different Contexts Above: S R S Varadhan, Wald lecturer. Neyman Lecture: Below: David Brillinger, David Brillinger (University of California at Neyman lecturer Berkeley): Dynamic Indeterminism in Science IMS Medallion lecturers: Andrew Barron (Yale University) Oleg Lepski (Université de Provence) Art Owen (Stanford University) Adrian Raftery (University of Washington)

Apparently... t's illegal to tease a skunk in Minnesota!

Photo: Illinois Department of Natural Resources August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 19

Late-breaking Sessions at JSM

Daniel F Heitjan, University of Pennsylvania, is the JSM 2005 the general public. Exit polls are unique in that they are not only Program Chair. He reports on the Late-breaking Sessions: used to predict the outcome of presidential elections, but they The 2005 Joint Statistical Meetings, to be held August 7–11 in also are one of the few sources of measures of error in surveys. Minneapolis, will be the fourth JSM to feature late-breaking ses- Moreover, they are one of the most public displays of the use of sions. These are special invited sessions that highlight the role of statistics. statistics in recent developments in science, technology, and policy, Exit polls in the 2004 U.S. presidential election were criticized covering important issues that arose too late to be included as part for predicting early in the day that John Kerry would win. They of the regular JSM invited program. Late-breaking sessions substan- also were in the news for another reason—their possible use in tially increase the interest of the JSM to both the members of the uncovering election fraud. The controversy over the 2004 exit sponsoring societies and to the press and general public, who are polls does not seem to end. This session will examine the technical offered a glimpse of the central role of our profession in the affairs details of exit polling from an international perspective. of the day. The Committee on Meetings — which includes representatives Late Breaking Session #2 from all five JSM sponsoring societies (ASA, IMS, International Wednesday, August 10, 10:30am–12:20pm [MCC-200 ABC] Biometric Society ENAR and WNAR, and SSC)— has selected The COX-2 Inhibitors Story: What do/should we know and when do/ two late-breaking sessions from the proposals we received this should we know it — and what should we do about it? year. The Monday early-afternoon session will discuss bias in exit Organizer & Chair: Susan Ellenberg, University of Pennsylvania polls, highlighting the recent national elections in the Ukraine 10:35am: A Meta-Analysis of Effects of COX-2 Inhibitors; Patricia and the United States. The Wednesday late-morning session will Kearney, cover statistical issues in the evaluation of the toxicities of COX-2 11:05am: Monitoring Drug Safety: The Vioxx Story; Raymond inhibitors. Full details are given below and, as always, the complete Bain, Merck & Co., Inc. JSM program is available online at http://www.amstat.org/meet- 11:35am: Disc: Steven J. W. Evans, London School of Hygiene and ings/jsm/2005/onlineprogram Tropical Medicine The JSM 2005 Program Committee and I hope you will enjoy 11:50am: Disc: Robert O’Neill, US Food & Drug Administration these late-breaking sessions, as well as the invited, topic-con- 12:05pm: Floor Discussion tributed, and regular contributed sessions we have planned. On Session Summary: It is well recognized that some risks of medical behalf of the Program Committee, I also wish to thank all of you treatments may not be identified until the treatments have been who helped us organize what we believe will be a stimulating and in widespread use over a period of time. Monitoring the safety of enjoyable JSM. We look forward to seeing you all this summer in medical treatments to detect such risks, however, can be challeng- Minneapolis. ing. Over the past year, concerns have arisen about the class of drugs known as COX-2 inhibitors, products developed to provide Late Breaking Session #1 relief of pain from arthritis and similar conditions without caus- Monday, August 8, 2005, 2:00–3:50pm [MCC-200 ABC] ing the gastric irritation that frequently arises in chronic users of Bias in Exit Polls traditional pain relievers such as aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen. Organizer & Chair: Clyde Tucker, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics While clinical trials conducted to support marketing approval 2:05pm: Exit Poll Bias in the 2004 U.S. General Election; Warren did not demonstrate any clear risks of serious outcomes, further Mitofsky, Mitofsky International studies—observational studies as well as clinical trials—indicated a 2:30pm: Ohio Election Analysis; Mary Batcher, Ernst & Young LLP higher rate of serious cardiovascular outcomes in users of COX-2 2:55pm: Exit Polls in the Ukraine; Anna Andreenkova, CESSI, Ltd. inhibitors compared to individuals receiving placebo or other pain 3:20pm: Investigating Causes of Within-Precinct Error In Exit relievers. There has been substantial debate concerning the interpre- Polls: Confounds and Controversies Elizabeth Liddle, University of tation of the emerging data, and whether action by pharmaceutical Nottingham companies and regulatory authorities was sufficiently rapid. 3:45pm: Floor Discussion In this session, the existing data for these products will be Session Summary: Since the 2004 presidential election, there has reviewed, and the chronology of developing information for one been heightened interest in exit polls among both statisticians and product, rofecoxib, will be presented as a case study. 20 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

New Directions in Probability Theory 2005 IMS co-sponsored meeting August 5-6, 2005, IMA, , Minneapolis, MN http://www.imstat.org/meetings/NDPT05/ The meeting New Directions in Probability Program: Theory will take place on August 5-6, 2005. Flows and Random Media It is co-sponsored by IMS and the Institute Organizer: Mike Cranston, University of California, Irvine and University of Rochester for Mathematics and its Applications Speakers: (IMA). Timo Seppalainen, University of Wisconsin: Spatial inhomogeneities and large scale behavior The meeting immediately precedes of the asymmetric exclusion process the Joint Statistical Meetings of August Peter Mueller, Goettingen University: Spectral asymptotics of Laplacians on bond-percolation 7-11 (co-sponsored by ASA, IMS, ENAR, graphs WNAR). It will take place on Friday/ Ken Alexander, USC: Pinning of polymers and interfaces by random potentials Saturday and will be held at the IMA at the University of Minnesota. Probability, Combinatorics, and Statistical Mechanics The meeting consists of five sessions Organizer: Russell Lyons, Indiana University of invited lectures, a poster Speakers: session of contributed Richard Kenyon, University of British Columbia: Simple random surfaces in Z3 papers, and four Antal Jarai, Carleton University: Infinite volume limit of the Abelian sandpile one-hour lectures, of model on Z^d which three are IMS Scott Sheffield, Courant Institute and IAS: Tug of war and the infinity Medallion Lectures. Laplacian It is intended for a general probability Stochastic Integration audience interested in Organizer: Terry Lyons, Oxford University recent developments Speakers: in probability theory. Peter Friz, Cambridge University: Some applications of rough path theory to There will be no reg- stochastic analysis istration fee for the meet- Anastasia Papavasiliou, Princeton University: Applications of rough paths to speech ing. However, space is limited, recognition and so early registration is recommended. Zhongmin Qian, Oxford University: Stochastic integrals for processes with long-time memory

One-Hour Lectures: Stochastic Partial Differential Equations Terry Lyons, Oxford University: Rough Organizer: Jonathan Mattingly, Duke University paths: a top down description of controls Speakers: Amir Dembo, Stanford University (IMS Martin Hairer, University of Warwick: Stochastic modulation equations Medallion Lecture): TBA Nicolai Krylov, University of Minnesota: On the foundation of the Lp-theory of SPDEs Ofer Zeitouni, University of Minnesota Jonathan Mattingly, Duke University: Ergodicity of the Degenerately forced Stochastic Fluid (IMS Medallion Lecture): Recent results and Equations open problems concerning motion in random media Random Walk in Random Environment Organizer: Ofer Zeitouni, University of Minnesota Program & Local Organizer: Speakers: Maury Bramson, University of Minnesota Nina Gantert, University of Karlsruhe: Random walk in random scenery [email protected] Vladas Sidoravicius, IMPA: Aggregation type growth - conjectures and new results Martin Zerner, University of California, Davis: On some self-interacting random walks in random environment August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 21

IMS Sponsored meeting: NOW IMS-SPONSORED 8th North American New Researchers Conference First Cornell Summer School in Probability August 2–6, 2005 (immediately before JSM) July 10-23, 2005 University of Minnesota , Ithaca, NY, USA http://pages.pomona.edu/~jsh04747/NRC/NRC.htm http://www.math.cornell.edu/%7Elawler/sum2005.html Contact: Jo Hardin, Pomona College, Department of Mathematics, Primary Lectures: 610 North College Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711 t (909) 607- Richard Durrett (Cornell University) Random networks: static and 8717 e [email protected]; Galin Jones, School of Statistics, dynamic models University of Minnesota, 313 Ford Hall, 224 Jean-Francois Le Gall (DMA - Ecole Normale Superieure de Paris) Church Street S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455. Random trees and applications e [email protected]; f 612.624.8868 Russell Lyons (Indiana University) Invariance in percolation, random Invited Keynote Speakers: walks, and random networks Grace Wahba University of Wisconsin, Madison IMS Co-sponsored meeting: Sandy Weisberg University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Workshop on Stochastic Methods in Game Theory Rick Cleary Bentley College September 24– October 2, 2005 The winner of the Tweedie New Researcher Award (to be Centro Majorana, Erice, Italy announced) http://web.econ.unito.it/scarsini/Erice2005/ Louis Chen President of the IMS, National University of Singapore IMS Representative Marco Scarsini [email protected] Speakers at Journal panel session: Frank Samaniego University of This workshop aims to give an overview of the interaction between California, Davis, editor of JASA – Theory and Methods; Jim Albert stochastic methods and game theory. Probability is central in Bowling Green State University, editor of The American Statistician. the theory of choice under uncertainty. In game theory, where Speaker at Funding panel session: Bob Serfling, NSF several decision makers interact, the presence of uncertainty adds a further complication, since different players could have different opinions, and therefore employ different probability measures to make their strategic decisions. The relatively recent consideration IMS co-sponsored meeting: that economic agents do not have infinite cognitive abilities and Frankfurter Stochastik-Tage / German Open Conference on do not possess full information about their environment raises new Probability and Statistics challenges, that need a treatment through advanced and innovative March 14–17, 2006 mathematical tools. Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main, Germany The conference will put a special emphasis on the following http://stoch2006.math.uni-frankfurt.de/index_en.html topics: bounded rationality, asymmetric information, and learning. IMS Reps: Norbert Henze, Arnold Janssen, Christine Mueller, Axel The spectrum of the meeting will be broad, ranging from Munk, Rainer Schwabe, Anton Wakolbinger foundational issues to technical probabilistic tools to applications This conference is held every two years by the Fachgruppe in economics, computer science, statistics, and operations research. Stochastik of the German Mathematical Society. It provides a The speakers will be young international scholars who are active forum for participants from universities, business, and industry to in various areas of the above fields. They will survey the recent discuss new results in the area of probability and statistics. advances in the discipline, describe their own contributions, and Contact: Frankfurter Stochastik-Tage 2006, German Open bring the audience to some open problems and possible research Conference on Probability and Statistics, c/o Prof. Dr Götz topics. Kersting, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, ISMI - Institut für Stochastik & Mathematische Informatik, Robert-Mayer-Str. 10, D- IMS Co-sponsored meeting: 60325 Frankfurt, Germany. f 0049-(0)69-798 23881; t 0049-(0)69- 2006 ENAR/IMS Spring Meeting: March 19-22, 2006 798 22644/28651; e [email protected] Hyatt Regency, New Orleans, LA http://www.enar.org/meetings.htm IMS co-program chairs: Michael Kosorok and Jason Fine, University of Wisconsin-Madison 22 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

More IMS Meetings Around the World

IMS co-sponsored meeting: celebrating his 65th birthday on Saturday evening, September 24. Conference on Nonparametric Inference and Probability with Planned Sessions: Statistics in Astronomy and Physics; Biased Applications to Science: sampling and missing data; Statistics in Biology; Nonparametric Honoring Michael Woodroofe’s Career and 65th Birthday inference; Probability; Shape restricted regression; Modern sequen- September 24–25, 2005 tial analysis and clinic trials. The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan Organized by: Robert Keener and Jiayang Sun. http://www.stat.lsa.umich.edu/conference/mw2005/index.html Invited Speakers include: Persi Diaconis, Nancy Heckman, There have been extensive developments recently in modern Robert Keener, Steve Lalley, T.L. Lai, Mario Mateo, Mary Meyer, nonparametric inference and modeling. Nonparametric and Vijay Nair, Gordie Simons, Jiayang Sun, Michael Woodroofe, Wei semi-parametric methods are especially useful with large amounts Biao Wu, Cun-Hui Zhang, Charles Hagwood, Steve Coad, Hira of data that are now routinely collected in many areas of science. Koul, Connie Page, Anand Vidyashenkar, Art Cohen, Harold Probability and stochastic modeling are also playing major new Sackrowitz, Zhiliang Ying, Arniban Das Gupta, Moulinath roles in scientific applications. This research conference will high- Banerjee, Anna Amirdjanova, Bill Strawderman. Other Invited light challenges and developments at this interface of statistics, Participants Include: Tom Sellke, Byron Roe, Vince Melphi, probability and the sciences. Herman Chernoff, Martha Aliaga. Topics covered will include biased sampling and missing data, Registration: There are no registration fees, but participants must shape-restricted inference, contemporary sequential analysis, mod- register by the deadline below. There will be a modest fee for the ern nonparametric inference, probability, and statistics applications. banquet. The conference will provide opportunities for young research- Deadlines: ers to interact with leaders in the profession, exchange ideas, and • June 30, 2005. Abstracts (invited and contributed) promote collaborations. • August 30, 2005, On-line Registration The conference will also serve as an occasion to recognize • October 30, 2005, Papers Due (for a refereed IMS monograph) Professor Michael Woodroofe’s pioneering contributions to Questions: [email protected] nonparametric inference and probability. There will be a banquet

Looking further ahead… IMS Annual Meetings and Joint Statistical Meetings, where details are known, over the next few years. 2006 2008 IMS Annual Meeting: Rio de Janeiro, IMS Annual Meeting: Singapore, July Brazil, July 30 – August 4, 2006. Meeting 20–26, 2008. Meeting held in conjunc- held in conjunction with the X Brazilian tion with the 7th Bernoulli Society World School of Probability (XEBP) at Instituto Congress. Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada. JSM08: Denver, Colorado, August JSM06: August 6–10, 2006 3–7, 2008. To be held at the Denver Seattle Convention Center, Seattle, WA Convention Center IMS Program Chair: Chris Genovese; IMS Please send your Contributed Paper Chair Jennifer Hoeting 2009 IMS Annual Meeting @ JSM09 meeting 2007 August 2–6, 2009 IMS Annual Meeting @ JSM07: Salt Lake Washington, DC City, Utah, July 29 – August 2, 2007 To be held at the Washington Convention announcement To be held at the Salt Palace Convention Center Center. to [email protected] August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 23

IMS co-sponsored meeting: IMS co-sponsored meeting: Workshop on Frontiers of Statistics NEW Nonparametric Models for Complex May 18–20, 2006 Biological Data Princeton, NJ August 15–17, 2005 http://www.orfe.princeton.edu/conferences/frontiers/index.htm Davis, CA, USA IMS Reps: Jianqing Fan, Luisa Fernholz, Hira Koul IMS Reps: Jianqing Fan, Hans-George The work intends to bring top and junior Mueller and Chunming Zhan researchers together to define and expand http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~mueller/frg/ the frontiers of statistics. It provides a index3.htm focal venue for top and junior researchers The meeting will focus on develop- to gather, interact and present their new ments of advanced nonparametric and research findings, to discuss and outline semiparametric methods for complex emerging problems in their fields, and to biological data. These include high-dimen- lay the groundwork for fruitful future col- sional data as in genomics and microarrays laborations. A distinguished feature is that and associated problems of normalization, all topics are in core statistics with interac- large n small p situations and dimension tions with other disciplines such as biology, reduction, image data such as fMRI brain medicine, engineering, computer science, images, and functional data. Functional economics and finance. Topics include: data arise in longitudinal studies, samples Nonparametric inference and machine of growth curves, trajectories of reproduc- learning tion, time-dynamic microarray expression Longitudinal and functional data trajectories, and other complex time-varying analysis responses of biological systems. Nonlinear time series, Financial econometrics The complexity of such biological data Computational biology, geomics and survival analysis requires new nonparametric/ semiparametric MCMC, Bootstrap, robust statistics approaches that are flexible, scale up to Experimental design and industrial engineering large data and enable a synthesis between Travel support: There is financial assistance available for graduate student, post-doctoral different approaches, such as functional and fellows, and junior scholars to contribute to their expenses such as housing or travel or longitudinal methodologies. The meeting registration. Download an application form from the website. will focus on current developments and avenues of future research in nonparametric modeling, data-analytic methods and theory IMS Sponsored meeting: for these challenges. 31st Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications July 17–21, 2006 Paris, France IMS Co-sponsored meeting: http://www.proba.jussieu.fr/pageperso/spa06/index.html 2007 ENAR/IMS Spring Meeting IMS reps: Edwin Perkins, Jim Pitman, Philip Protter, Alain-Sol Sznitman, Simon Tavaré April 15-18, 2007 and Ed Waymire. Fountainebleau Hilton Resort Miami, FL http://www.enar.org/meetings.htm

IMS Co-sponsored Meeting: IMS co-sponsored meeting: 2006 WNAR/IMS Western Regional Meeting Probability Summer School Check the IMS meetings pages at June 2006 June 26 - July 7, 2006 http://www.imstat.org/meetings Flagstaff, Arizona Ithaca, NY for regular updates IMS Program Chair: TBA. Details to follow… 24 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

All subscriptions include online access SPECIAL RATES FOR IMS members Journal of Time Series Analysis Edited by: M. B. Priestley Ranked 54/77 in Statistics & Probability and 40/52 in Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications in the ISI Sciences Citation Index Journal of Time Series Analysis started in 1980, has since become the leading journal in its field, publishing papers on both fundamental theory and applications. It has a prestigious editorial board which includes many of the world’s leading experts in Time Series Analysis. Articles Published Online Ahead of Print: Articles which have been fully copy-edited and peer-reviewed are published online through our OnlineEarly feature before the print edition of JTSA is published. Also from www.blackwellpublishing.com/journals/jtsa Blackwell Publishing Australian & New Zealand Journal of Scandinavian Journal of Statistics: Theory and Applications Statistics Edited by L. Bondesson Biometrics Ranked 29/77 in Statistics & Probability in the ISI Sciences Citation Index Econometrica Scandinavian Journal of Statistics is internationally recognised as one of the leading statistical journals in the Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice world. It is an international journal devoted to reporting significant and innovative original contributions to Financial Markets, Institutions & statistical methodology, both theory and applications. SJS specialises in statistical modelling, showing particular Instruments appreciation of the underlying substantive research problems. Journal of Economics & Management Published on behalf of the Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics, the Finnish Statistical Society, Strategy the Norwegian Statistical Society and the Swedish Statistical Association Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: www.blackwellpublishing.com/journals/sjos Series A (Statistics in Society) Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Statistical Methodology) Statistica Neerlandica Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series C (Applied Statistics) Edited by: P. H. Franses Mathematical Finance Ranked 65/77 in Statistics & Probability in the ISI Sciences Citation Index Oxford Bulletin of Economics & Statistics Statistica Neerlandica publishes research and expository material about new developments in probability, statistics and operations research, and their applications in medical, agricultural, econometric, physical or Risk Analysis social sciences and industry, commerce and government. Significance Published on behalf of the Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research Sociological Methodology www.blackwellpublishing.com/journals/stan Studies in Applied Mathematics Teaching Statistics

SPECIAL RATES Visit the journal homepages to subscribe to these journals at the special reduced rates for IMS members, or contact Verity Warne Email: [email protected] Fax: +44 (0) 1865 471264 August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 25

Other Meetings Around the World: Announcements and Calls for Papers

NEW Workshop on Statistical Inverse Problems 25th Annual Conference of the University of Goettingen, Germany NEW Indian Society for Probability and Statistics March 23–25, 2006 December 28–30, 2005 http://www.num.math.uni-goettingen.de/gk/conference/conferences.php?LANG=EN Bangalore, India First announcement: Jointly organised by Bangalore University The Graduiertenkolleg 1023 “Identification in mathematical models: Synergy of sto- and the Indian Statistical Institute. chastic and numerical methods” at the University of Göttingen announces a workshop Organising Secretary: H J Vaman, email on Statistical Inverse Problems. Inverse Problems is an area of growing interest both for [email protected] statisticians and numerical analysts since such problems arise naturally in many applications e.g. in in medical imaging, economy, finance, physics, chemistry, biology and industrial research. So far a large part of the research on inverse problems in statistics and numerics has followed different paths. Whereas a lot of progress has been achieved on nonlinear Conference on NEW deterministic inverse problems over the last decade, the literature on nonlinear statisti- Stochastic Control and Numerics cal inverse problems is scarce. In contrast, a variety of sophisticated adaptive techniques September 15–18, 2005 for parameter and model selection have been developed in statistics, which do not have University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee a counterpart in deterministic theory. Many questions of fundamental theoretical and http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Math/Events/ practical importance arise in both fields: identifiability, consistency, computation of estima- Stochastic/main.htm tors, and optimality in various forms. Therefore, this workshop intends to establish and The conference will focus on control theory strengthen links between research in the statistical and the deterministic inverse problems and numerical methods for stochastic mod- communities. els and its applications in diverse areas such The workshop will cover the following topics: as biology, finance and operations research. Methods and Techniques: Algorithmic Aspects of Inverse Problems; Bayesian The conference will comprise five one- Approaches; Minimax Theory; Convergence Analysis; Iterative Methods for Non-Linear hour presentations, approximately twelve Inverse Problems thirty-minute lectures and poster sessions Fields of Application: Econometrics; Image Reconstruction; Deconvolution; Medical each day. Submissions to the poster sessions Applications; Technical/Physical/Industrial Applications are encouraged. Registration Keynote speakers: There will be no conference fee. Please register for the conference by 01/11/2005 using Thomas Kurtz, University of Wisconsin- the following email-address: [email protected] We intend to provide ample Madison opportunity for discussions. Therefore the official program will be limited to invited talks. Stanley Pliska, University of Illinois at However, there will be a possibilty to present a poster in a special poster session. If you Chicago intend to do so please indicate this in your registration and provide a title and an abstract Philip Protter, Cornell University by 01/11/2005. Jerome Stein, Brown University For further requests contact: Denis Talay, INRIA Heike Ahrens Limited support is available to help Institut für Numerische und Angewandte graduate students and recent PhDs to par- Mathematik, Georg-August-Universitaet Göttingen ticipate in the conference. Deadline August Lotzestr. 16-18 1, 2005 for requests for financial support, 37083 Göttingen, Germany requests to contribute a poster, and abstracts t ++49-(0)551/39-4523 for contributed posters e [email protected] 26 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

Other Meetings Around the World: Announcements and Calls for Papers

Statistics in the Technological Age Twenty-Seventh Midwest Probability December 27–31, 2005 NEW Colloquium NEW Petaling Jaya, Malaysia October 20-22, 2005 Organized by the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois Lumpur, Malaysia, and held at the Eastin Hotel, Petaling Jaya, this international confer- http://www.math.northwestern.edu/mwp/ ence aims to bring together academicians and professionals from various fields in statis- The 27th Midwest Probability colloquium tics to discuss and present their research findings on statistics and its applications in the will feature the Main Speaker Robert Adler technological age. The scope of this international conference covers (but is not limited of the Technion, speaking on “Random to): Bioinformatics, Statistical Modeling and Inference, Life Time Analysis, Experimental fields on manifolds” in a series of two Designs, Bayesian and Robust Analysis, Computational Statistics and Directional Data lectures on Friday October 21. In addition Analysis. there will be a special tutorial program on Professor C R Rao has kindly agreed to be the keynote speaker. The plenary speakers Thursday October 20 on “Lipschitz-Killing include Rakesh Agrawal (IBM Almaden Research Center), B C Arnold (University of curvatures and Weyl’s tube formula”, pre- California, Riverside), Louis Chen (National University of Singapore), Lee Mei Ling sented jointly by Adler and Jonathan Taylor (Harvard University), G J McLachlan (University of Queensland), Rahul Mukherjee of Stanford University. (Calcutta Institute of Management, India), G P Patil (Pennsylvania State University) and On Saturday October 22 the program P K Sen (Univ. of North Carolina). The organizing committee consists of Ramesh Gupta will consist of one hour lectures by Marek (University of Maine, USA) (Chair), Pushpa Gupta (University of Maine, USA), Dipak Biskup (UCLA) and Alice Guionnet (Lyon). Dey (University of Connecticut, USA) and S H Ong (University of Malaya). The local organizer is Mark Pinsky There will be a one day workshop (27 December 2005) on “Geographic and [email protected] Network Surveillance for Arbitrarily Shaped Hotspots with Applications” organized by Information about hotel reservations G P Patil. For further information, please visit the website http//iscm.math.um.edu.my or and other local connections may be found contact Ramesh Gupta [email protected] or S H Ong [email protected] on our website.

The Future of Data Analysis: a Conference in Honor of Jon Kettenring National Institute of Statistical Sciences PO Box 14006, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709–4006 Sponsored by the National Institute of Statistical Sciences NEW Tel: 919.685.9300 FAX: 919.685.9310 September 30, 2005 NISS www.niss.org Avaya Labs Research, Basking Ridge, NJ The National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) is pleased to announce a one-day conference, The Future of Data Analysis, honoring The Future of Data Analysis A Conference in Honor of Jon Kettenring Jon Kettenring’s multiple contributions to the profession and to NISS. The conference will be held on Friday, September 30, 2005, at Avaya Labs Research in Basking Ridge, NJ, and will be followed by a dinner in Jon’s honor. Reflecting Jon’s strong and persistentSponsored interest by the National Institute of Statistical Sciences in data, the conference will consist of four technical sessions and multiple opportunities for interaction among participants. The technical sessions: September 30, 2005 Jon Kettenring: Clustering—The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Avaya Labs Research, Basking Ridge, NJ Colin Mallows: Tukey’s Paper after Forty Years: What’s Been Done? What Remains? What’s New? with discussants to include Andreas Buja (University of Pennsylvania), James Landwehr (Avaya Labs Research) and Daryl Pregibon (Google) The National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) is pleased to announce a one-day con- ference The Future of Data Analysis honoring Jon Kettenring’s multiple contributions to the pro- Finding Structure in Data—From EDA to Data Mining and Beyond, with presentations by Sid Dalal (Xerox), Dianefession Lambert and to (Bell NISS. Labs) The conference will be held on Friday, September 30, 2005, at Avaya Labs Research in Basking Ridge, NJ, and will be followed by a dinner in Jon’s honor. and David Madigan (Rutgers) Reflecting Jon’s strong and persistent interest in data, the conference will consist of four techni- Inference in Large Databases, with presentations by Alan Karr (NISS) and Sallie Keller-McNulty (Los Alamos Nationalcal sessions Laboratory) and multiple opportunities for interaction among participants. The technical sessions: Jon Kettenring: Clustering—The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Registration for the conference is available on the NISS affiliates web site, at www.niss.org/affiliates/jkconference200509/kettenringcon• - Colin Mallows: Tukey’s Paper after Forty Years: What’s Been Done? What Remains? ference.html . There is no registration fee. However, registration in advance is required. Additional information, including• details for the What’s New?, with discussants to include Andreas Buja (University of Pennsylvania), James dinner and housing, is available on the conference web page. Landwehr (Avaya Labs Research) and Daryl Pregibon (Google) Finding Structure in Data—From EDA to Data Mining and Beyond, with presentations by • Sid Dalal (Xerox), Diane Lambert (Bell Labs) and David Madigan (Rutgers) Inference in Large Databases, with presentations by Alan Karr (NISS) and Sallie Keller– • McNulty (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

Registration for the conference is available on the NISS affiliates web site, at www.niss.org/affiliates/jkconference200509/kettenringconference.html

There is no registration fee. However, registration in advance is required. Additional information, including details for the dinner and housing, is available on the conference web page. August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 27

International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM 2006) Interface 2006: Massive Data Sets and Streams August 22–30, 2006 May 24–27, 2006 Madrid, Spain Pasadena, California http://www.icm2006.org http://www.galaxy.gmu.edu/Interface2006/i2006webpage.html Travel Grants Interface 2006 will be held May 24–27, 2006 at the Westin Hotel The American Mathematical Society has applied to the National in Pasadena, California; the theme is Massive Data Sets and Streams. Science Foundation (NSF) for funds to permit partial travel sup- We look forward to a vibrant program focussing on modern port for US mathematicians attending the 2006 International problems related to data and information overload, and what we Congress of Mathematicians (ICM 06) August 22-30, 2006, in as professional data analysts can contribute to their solution. Topic Madrid, Spain. Subject to the award decision by the NSF, the areas include but are not limited to medicine, statistics and the arts, Society is preparing to administer the selection process, which physics, forensics, telecommunications, climate and weather, Earth would be similar to previous programs funded in 1990, 1994, 1998 science, public policy, the internet, alcoholism, genomics, streaming and 2002. data, siesmology, text mining, data fusion, and information tech- Applications for support are printed in this issue of the Notices, nology. However, we expect and strongly encourage contributions and forms will be available on the AMS website (at http://www. related to other topics, techniques and applications relevant to the ams.org/careers-edu/icmapp.html) beginning August 1, 2005. theme, including all areas of data mining. In addition we hope to All completed application forms must be mailed to the AMS by attract discipline scientists who will share their problems and solu- October 31, 2005. This travel grants program, if funded, will be tions with us, whether or not those solutions appeal to traditional administered by the Membership and Programs Department, AMS, statistical or data mining methods. See http://www.galaxy.gmu.edu/ 201 Charles Street, Providence, RI 02904-2294. You can contact us at Interface2006/i2006webpage.html for more information, or contact [email protected], 800-321-4267, ext. 4058 or 401-455-4058. Amy Braverman at [email protected] This program is open to US mathematicians (those who are cur- Amy Braverman rently affiliated with a US institution). Early career mathematicians Senior Member, Information Systems and Computer Science Staff (those within six years of their doctorate), women, and members of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology US groups underrepresented in mathematics are especially encour- Mail Stop 126-347, 4800 Oak Grove Drive aged to apply. ICM06 Invited Speakers from US institutions should Pasadena, CA 91109-8099 submit applications, if funding is desired. t (818) 354-6168 Applications will be evaluated by a panel of mathematical f (818) 393-6141 scientists under the terms of a proposal submitted to the National Science Foundation (NSF) by the Society. Should the proposal to the NSF be funded, the following International Conference on Statistical Models for Biomedical and conditions will apply: mathematicians accepting grants for partial Technical Systems support of the travel to ICM06 may not supplement them with May 29–31, 2006, Limassol, Cyprus. any other NSF funds. Currently, it is the intention of the NSF’s http://www.ucy.ac.cy/biostat2006 Division of Mathematical Sciences to provide no additional funds CALL FOR PAPERS on its other regular research grants for travel to ICM in 2006. The Conference provides the forum for presenting new statisti- However, an individual mathematician who does not receive a cal models and mathematical methods for Survival Analysis, the travel grant may use regular NSF grant funds, subject to the usual Reliability of Engineering and Technical Systems as well as the restrictions and prior approval requirements. Reliability of Biological and Biomedical Systems. The Conference is All information currently available about the ICM06 program, organized by the University of Cyprus and the Seminaire Europeen organization, and registration procedure is located on the ICM06 - European Seminar “Methodes Mathématiques pour l’ Analyse de website, http://www.icm2006.org. Survie, Fiabilite et Qualite de Vie”. A single registration fee enables the participants to attend all sessions of the conference as well as the Special Workshop on “The Analysis of Microarray Data” to be presented during the conference. For details contact: Ilia Vonta, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Cyprus, email: [email protected] 28 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

Employment Opportunities around the world Directory of Advertisements Canada Canada: Manitoba University of Manitoba, Winnipeg USA: California: Claremont McKenna College University of Manitoba, Winnipeg Florida: University of Central Florida Head of the Department of Statistics Maryland: National Institutes of Health Position # AP631 Mississippi: Mississippi State University Massachusetts: Boston University Pennsylvania: Penn State New York: Cornell University The Faculty of Science at The University of Manitoba invites applications or nominations Utah: University of Utah for the position of Head of the Department of Statistics. The appointment will begin on Virginia: William and Mary July 1, 2006, or on a date mutually agreed upon. The appointment will be at the rank of Washington: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Professor or Associate Professor commensurate with qualifications and experience. The Research Center, Seattle successful candidate must have a PhD degree in Statistics or a cognate discipline. Strong academic leadership experience in research, undergraduate and graduate programming is USA: Pennsylvania preferred. Statistics Faculty Positions The Department of Statistics is one of the oldest and largest in Canada. It currently Penn State has 15 full-time academic members with research interests in various areas of Statistics The Department of Statistics at Penn State and Probability. The Department is seeking new leadership to assist in the reshaping and seeks to fill the Eberly Chair and one posi- renewal of its research and teaching programs. Applications should include a curriculum tion at any rank beginning August 2006. vitae, the names of three referees, and a brief statement indicating his/her views on the Candidates with research experience in future of research and teaching in Statistics and Probability in an academic department. social science methodology, bioinformatics Review of applications will begin on September 19, 2005 and continue until the position and environmental applications are encour- is filled. Additional information about the department can be found on the web at http:// aged to apply. Primary responsibilities: www.umanitoba.ca/statistics conduct research, teach undergraduate and Nominations or applications should be forwarded to: graduate courses and pursue collaboration. Dr Mark Whitmore, Dean Qualifications: Requires PhD in Faculty of Science Statistics or related field. Candidates must University of Manitoba demonstrate potential for excellence in 250 Machray Hall research and teaching. See http://www.stat. Winnipeg, Manitoba psu.edu for more information. Canada, R3T 2N2 Please send a letter of application, cur- The University of Manitoba encourages applications from qualified women and men, riculum vita and three letters of recommen- including members of visible minorities, Aboriginal people and persons with disabilities. dation to: Chair, Faculty Search Committee, All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent Department of Statistics, Penn State, 326B residents will be given priority. Application materials, including letters of reference, will Thomas Building, University Park, PA 16802- be handled in accordance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act 2111, USA. (Manitoba). Screening will begin November 15, Winnipeg has a great deal to offer, both culturally and recreationally, with a number 2005, and continue until the positions are of professional and ethnic arts groups, professional sports teams, outstanding restaurants, filled. Penn State is committed to affirma- and opportunities for all types of outdoor activities in all seasons. The Winnipeg housing tive action, equal opportunity and the market is one of the most favourable in Canada. Further information can be found on the diversity of its workforce. web at http://www.tourism.winnipeg.mb.ca/

::: Check deadlines and requirements inside back cover ::: Send your advert to Elyse Gustafson [email protected] ::: August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 29

USA: California USA: Florida University of Central Florida Ruth and Joseph Reed Professorship in Applied Mathematical Chair: Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science Statistics The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of The Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Central Florida, invites applications for the position of Department of Claremont McKenna College announces a tenure track posi- Chair. Candidates for the position must have a PhD in statistics tion at the Associate / Full professor level beginning July 1, 2006. or related field and be qualified for appointment at the rank of full Candidates must have a PhD in mathematical or applied statistics. professor with tenure. Necessary qualifications include a strong Both teaching and professional accomplishments are highly valued. research record, excellent communication skills, and demonstrated Data analysis experience and cross-disciplinary interests are pre- interest in interdisciplinary activities. A record of grant activity and ferred. Salary is competitive, summer support is available, and the expertise in administration is preferred. The department is seeking normal teaching load is four courses per year. a leader to facilitate the development of a PhD degree program in For the complete ad, see http://math.mckenna.edu/. Send vita, Statistics with concentration in Data Mining, to strengthen the teaching philosophy, program for professional activity, undergradu- department’s BS in Statistics, BS in Actuarial Science, and Actual ate and graduate transcripts and three or more recommendations Science and Data Mining Tracks within the MS in Statistical letters to: Computing, and to pursue further industrial, government, Prof Janet Myhre, Chair Search Committee, academic, and research partnerships in Central Florida and the Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, Southeastern United States. This is a tenured position to be filled Claremont McKenna College, effective Fall 2006. Send resume (PDF or electronic WORD for- 850 Columbia Ave., mat) and a list of references to: Claremont, California, 91711-6420. Dr Diane Z Chase Review of applications will begin on November 1, 2005, and Statistics and Actuarial Science Chair Search will continue until the position is filled. Academic Affairs, 311 Millican Hall Claremont McKenna College is a highly selective undergraduate University of Central Florida institution ranked among the top liberal arts colleges nationally. PO Box 160065 CMC is a member of The Claremont Colleges that also include Orlando, FL 32816-0065 Pomona, Scripps, Pitzer, Harvey Mudd, the Claremont Graduate Review of applications will begin on November 1, 2005 and con- University and the Keck Graduate Institute for Applied Science. tinue until the position is filled. Collectively, The Claremont Colleges constitute an academic com- For more information, contact the chair of the search com- munity of 6,000 students. Claremont is located 35 miles east of mittee at [email protected] or visit the department’s web site at downtown Los Angeles. http://www.cas.ucf.edu/statistics/ Claremont McKenna College is an equal opportunity employer. UCF is one of the nation’s fastest growing universities with a Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. For more informa- current enrollment of over 43,000 students. It is located in Orlando tion on CMC visit our website http://www.claremontmckenna.edu approximately 50 miles from the Atlantic coast and 100 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Faculty at UCF enjoy the same combination USA: Mississippi of climate and recreational activities that draws millions of visitors Mississippi State University to the area each year. In addition, a vigorous economy with a high- Head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics technology component provides special opportunities for the Chair Confidential nominations and applications are invited for the posi- of Statistics and Actuarial Science. tion of Head of the 35-faculty Department of Mathematics and UCF is an equal opportunity affirmative action employer. Statistics at Mississippi State University. Women and minorities are strongly urged to apply. As an agency For complete information, including application details, visit of the State of Florida, UCF makes all search records available for http://www.msstate.edu/Dept/Math or e-mail math.position@dept. public inspection. AA/EOE msstate.edu. A doctorate in Mathematical Sciences, strong administrative skills, and an established research record are required. Position is open until filled. AA/EOE.

::: Check deadlines and requirements inside back cover ::: Send your advert to Elyse Gustafson [email protected] ::: IMS Bulletin . . 30 IMS Bulletinissue date: August/September, 2005 Volume 34 Issue 7 1/2 page (7 1/2” x 4”) USA: Maryland Department of Health & Human Services National Institutes of Health National Institute of Child Health & Human Development Division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research Biometry and Mathematical Statistics Branch Tenure/Tenure-Track Investigator The Biometry and Mathematical Statistics Branch of the Division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (DESPR), NIH is seeking a BIOSTATISTICIAN with training or experience in mathematical statistics or a MATHEMATICAL STATISTICIAN with training or experience in biostatistics. Candidates should have experience COLLABORATING in epidemiologic or medical research. The appointment will be at the level of a tenure-track investigator. Senior candidates with exceptional experience may be considered for appointment with tenure. DESPR conducts intervention, cohort and case control studies in the areas of reproductive, perinatal and child health epidemiology, and child and adolescent behavior. The position offers a great opportunity to capitalize on the expertise, resources and collaborative environment of DESPR and to pursue independent research on statistical methods relevant to DESPR studies. Applicants should have a doctoral degree in statistics, biostatistics, or related fields, or equivalent qualifications. Applicants must also have a strong record of post-PhD research demonstrating both an ability to collaborate effectively with scientists in other disciplines and to conduct research on statistical methodology. Candidates with experience conducting statistical research, and/or collaborating with investigators, in subject matter relevant to DESPR studies are particularly encouraged to apply. For additional information regarding substantive issues of the position, please contact Kai Fun Yu, Ph.D., Chief, BMSB, DESPR, NICHD at [email protected] or 301-496-6813, or visit web page: http://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/despr/despr.htm For technical questions regarding the application process, contact Michael Munday at 301-451-7873 or [email protected] To apply, please submit a cover letter, statement of recent research interests and collaborative research experience, curriculum vitae, and three letters of reference, at least one of which is from a collaborator in epidemiologic or medical research, by September 2, 2005 to: Michael Munday, Administrative Officer, NICHD, NIH, 6100 Executive Blvd, Room 7C07, Bethesda, MD 20892-7510. NIH and DHHS are Equal Opportunity Employers

USA: Massachusetts USA: Utah Boston University University of Utah MA Degree Program in Mathematical Finance The Department of Mathematics at the University of Utah invites Exceptional candidates with expertise in Mathematical Finance applications for the following positions: are invited to apply for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position Full-time tenure-track or tenured appointments at the level of at Boston University. The appointment will be effective as early as assistant, associate or full professor. January 1, 2006. All applicants should demonstrate outstanding Three-year Scott, Wylie, Burgess, or possibly VIGRE Assistant potential as researchers and educators and extensive knowledge of Professorships, depending on funding availability. Persons receiv- Theoretical Finance, Stochastic Analysis and Probability Theory. ing PhD degrees in 2004 or later (2005 or later for VIGRE) are Applicants should submit a cover letter and three copies of the eligible. following: (a) detailed vita; (b) detailed description of current and IGERT and RTG Postdoctoral Fellowships. IGERT fellowship future research plans; (c) brief teaching statement; and (d) selected applicants should have a background in Mathematical Biology; reprints and preprints. Complete applications must be mailed to: while RTG fellowship applicants should have a background in Mathematical Finance Search Committee applied and computational mathematics and have interests in work- MA degree program in Mathematical Finance ing in mathematical biology. These postdoctoral fellowships are Boston University 3-year positions. See www.math.utah.edu/research/mathbio/oppor- 111 Cummington Street tunities.html Boston, MA, 02215, USA Please see our website at www.math.utah.edu/positions for Applicants should have at least four letters of recommendation, information regarding available positions, application requirements one of which evaluates teaching, sent directly to the above address. and deadlines. Applications must be completed through the website Applications received by October 1, 2005 will be given full consid- www.mathjobs.org eration. Early application is advisable. The University of Utah is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Boston University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Action Employer and encourages applications from women and Employer. minorities, and provides reasonable accommodation to the known disabilities of applicants and employees.

::: Check deadlines and requirements inside back cover ::: Send your advert to Elyse Gustafson [email protected] ::: August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 31

USA: New York USA: Virginia Lecturer/Senior Lecturer - 03983 William and Mary Tenure track assistant professorship, begin- The Department of Social Statistics in the New York State School of Industrial ning August 2006. and Labor Relations at Cornell University invites applications for a Demonstrated excellence in scholar- Lecturer/Senior Lecturer position for a term of one to three years beginning August 24, 2005. For the 2005-2006 academic year, the teaching assignment ship and teaching, and PhD in operations would be five semester-long introductory-level Statistics courses, and the duties research, mathematics or related field would include coordinating the teaching of all introductory Statistics courses. required. Incumbent will work with Candidates are required to have a relevant Master’s degree and evidence of Mathematics Department faculty to teaching ability for introductory Statistics courses at the undergraduate level. support MS degree in Computational Salary in the range $45K-$60K is appropriate to qualifications. Send an application with a statement of your teaching philosophy, a CV, and three Operations Research (http://www.math. letters of recommendation to: wm.edu/~leemis/or.html). Search Committee, Department of Social Statistics Research area open but teaching of MS- 358 Ives Hall level courses in optimization or stochastic Ithaca, NY 14853-3901 modeling expected. Visiting positions may Electronic submissions can be made to: also be available. See http://www.math. [email protected] wm.edu for more information. Submit application letter, CV, research description, and three or more recom- Cornell University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and Educator. mendation letters (at least one concerning http://chronicle.com/jobs/profiles/2377.htm teaching) to: Search Committee, Mathematics Department, USA: Washington P.O. Box 8795, Fred HutchinsonPaper: Cancer Research IMS Bulletin Center, Seattle William and Mary, Post-DoctoralIssue: Research Fellow AUG issue- JS-016314 Deadline July 1 Williamsburg, The Size:statistical Center for1/3 HIV/AIDSpage (4.93” Research x 4”) and Prevention seeks a PhD in Statistics/ VA 23187-8795 Biostatistics(includes or webrelated posting field foron aIMS one-to-twoTAT.org) year postdoctoral position to work on prob- Review begins November 10 and lems including surrogate endpoint in HIV vaccine trials, with the potential for extension to continues until appointment is made. longer term. Department members will be available at The ideal candidate will possess: the November INFORMS meeting and the • Strong statistical computation and programming skills [experienced in (a) R or S-plus, January AMS/MAA Meetings. or (b) Fortran, or (c) SAS, best if has experience with Matlab programming] AA/EEO employer. • Proficiency in statistical theories and their applications, • An interest or experience in biomedical applications of statistics, preferably with experi- ence in nonparametric statistical methods, survival analysis and longitudinal analysis, • Knowledge/experience in statistical methods and applications in immunology and HIV/ AIDS related research (a plus but not a prerequisite), • Excellent communication skills, written skills and ability to take initiative and give creative inputs. The jobs section on Compensation: Per NIH guidelines the IMS website To apply, send a current CV, a research statement, three letters of recommendation, is updated regularly. and/or manuscripts via email to [email protected], or via US mail to Check it out at Helen Pagal, SCHARP, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1100 Fairview Ave N. LE-400, PO Box 19024 http://imstat.org/jobs Seattle WA 98109-1024

::: Check deadlines and requirements inside back cover ::: Send your advert to Elyse Gustafson [email protected] ::: 32 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7 International Calendar of Statistical Events IMS meetings are highlighted in maroon with the logo and new or updated entries have the NEW symbol. t means telephone, f fax, e email and w website. Please submit your meeting details and any corrections to Elyse Gustafson at [email protected]

August 2005 August 24–26: Washington, DC. Fifth Birthday. w http://www.stat.lsa.umich.edu/ Annual Total Microarray Data Analysis conference/mw2005/index.html August 2–6: University of Minnesota, and Interpretation. w http://www.healtht- Minneapolis. 8th North American New ech.com/2005/mda/index.asp September 24 – October 2: Centro Researchers Conference. w http://pages. Majorana, Erice, Italy. Workshop on pomona.edu/~jsh04747/NRC/NRC.htm September 2005 Stochastic Methods in Game Theory. IMS Rep: Marco Scarsini. w http://web.econ. August 5–6: IMA, Minneapolis. New September 12-14: Bandung, Indonesia. unito.it/scarsini/Erice2005/ Directions in Probability Theory. IMS Pro- National Statistical Competition for gram Chair Maury Bramson. w http://www. Engineering. Competition for under- September 26–29: Braunschweig, Germany. imstat.org/meetings/NDPT05/ graduate students. Hosana Konstansius e Statistical Week: Annual Meeting of the [email protected] German Statistical Society. w http://www. August 5–11: Budapest, Hungary. Logic in statistische-woche.de Hungary. w http://www.renyi.hu/~lh05/ September 15–16: ISPED, Bordeaux, France. Workshop in Honor of Niels NEW September 30: Avaya Labs August 7–11: Minneapolis, Min- Keiding: Life history events analysis in Research, Basking Ridge, NJ. The Future of nesota. IMS Annual Meeting at JSM2005. epidemiology and fertility studies. Daniel Data Analysis: a Conference in Honor of IMS Program Chair: David Madigan Commenges e daniel.commenges@isped. Jon Kettenring. Sponsored by the National [email protected]; IMS Local u-bordeaux2.fr w http://www.isped.u-bor- Institute of Statistical Sciences. w http:// Chair: Peihua Qiu, [email protected] w deaux2.fr/IFR99/ACCUEIL/FR-IFR99-Accueil. www.niss.org/affiliates/jkconference200509/ http://www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2005 htm kettenringconference.html

August 15–17: Davis, CA. Nonpara- NEW September 15–18: University October 2005 metric Models for Complex Biological of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Conference Data. IMS Reps: Jianqing Fan, Hans- on Stochastic Control and Numerics. w October 3-7: Bern, Switzerland. Stochastic George Mueller and Chunming Zhan. http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Math/Events/ Geometry and its Applications. w http:// w http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~mueller/frg/ Stochastic/main.htm www.cx.unibe.ch/~ilya/wbec index3.htm September 16–17: Carnegie Mellon Uni- October 6–8: University of Firenze (Flor- August 15–19: Gothenburg, Sweden. 4th versity, Pittsburgh, PA. Eighth Workshop ence), Italy. New Mathematical Methods Conference on Extreme Value Analysis: on Case Studies in . In Risk Theory: Workshop In Honour Of Probabilistic and Statistical Models and NEW RESEARCHERS: call for talks & Hans Bühlmann. w http://www.riskwork- their Applications. w http://www.math. posters, deadline July 1, 2005. Rob Kass e shop.it/ ku.dk/~mikosch/maphysto_extremes_2005/ [email protected] w http://www.stat.cmu. extremes.html edu/bayesworkshop NEW October 20-22: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Twenty- August 17–19: Shanghai, China. September 24–25: University of Seventh Midwest Probability Colloquium. MCP2005: 4th International Conference Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. Conference on Mark Pinsky [email protected] on Multiple Comparison Procedures. w Nonparametric Inference and Probability w http://www.math.northwestern.edu/mwp/ http://www.stat.ohio-state.edu/~mcp2005 with Applications to Science: Honoring Michael Woodroofe’s Career and 65th August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 33

December 2005 March 19–22: New Orleans, LA. 2006 Canada, N6A 5B7, e [email protected]. ENAR/IMS Spring Meeting. IMS Program ca t (519) 661-3614 f (519) 661-3813. NEW December 27–31: Petaling Jaya, Chair TBA. w http://www.enar.org/meet- Scientific program chair Richard Lockhart e Malaysia. Statistics in the Technological ings.htm [email protected] Age. Organized by the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, University of March 20-24: CIMAT, Guanajuato, NEW May 29–31, 2006: Limassol, Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Contact Mexico. Conference on Stochastics in Cyprus. International Conference on Ramesh Gupta [email protected] Science, in honor of Ole E Barndorff- Statistical Models for Biomedical and or S H Ong [email protected] w http// Nielsen’s 71st Birthday. Further informa- Technical Systems. Ilia Vonta, Department iscm.math.um.edu.my tion [email protected] of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Cyprus e [email protected] w http:// NEW December 28-30: Bangalore, India. NEW March 23–25: University of www.ucy.ac.cy/biostat2006 25th Annual Conference of the Indian Goettingen, Germany. Workshop on Society for Probability and Statistics Statistical Inverse Problems. Heike Ahrens June 2006 (ISPS). Jointly organised by Bangalore t ++49-(0)551/39-4523 e gk1023@math. University and the Indian Statistical uni-goettingen.de w http://www.num.math. June 1-7: Benidorm, Spain. Valencia / ISBA Institute. Organising Secretary: H J Vaman uni-goettingen.de/gk/conference/confer- 8th World Meeting on Bayesian Statis- e [email protected] ences.php?LANG=EN tics. Join the Valencia 8 mailing list: e [email protected] w http://www.uv.es/ January 2006 May 2006 valenciameeting

January 16–18: Honolulu, Hawaii. Fifth May 17–19: Cork, Ireland. Annual meeting June 5–9: Smolenice Castle, Slovak Repub- Annual Hawaii International Conference of the Irish Statistical Association. Local lic. PROBASTAT 2006: Fifth International on Statistics, Mathematics and Related organiser: Kingshuk Roy Choudhury, Conference on Probability and Statistics. Fields. Andrew Burge, Conference Coor- University College Cork, Ireland. e PROBASTAT2006, Institute of Measure- dinator. t 808-946-9927 f 808-947-2420 [email protected] ment Science, Slovak Academy of Sciences, e [email protected] w http://www. Dubravska cesta 9, 841 04 BRATISLAVA, hicstatistics.org NEW May 18–20, 2006: Princeton, Slovak Republic. e [email protected] w NJ. Workshop on Frontiers of Statistics. http://aiolos.um.savba.sk/~viktor/probastat. February 2006 IMS Reps: Jianqing Fan, Luisa Fernholz, html Hira Koul. w http://www.orfe.princeton. February 15–16: Santa Monica, CA. First edu/conferences/frontiers/index.htm June 14–17: University of Connecticut, Annual Conference on Quantitative Storrs, CT. ICSA 2006 Applied Statistics Methods and Statistical Applications in NEW May 24–27, 2006: Pasadena, Symposium. Prof Ming-Hui Chen, Defense and National Security. Contact California. Interface 2006: Massive Data Department of Statistics, University of Technical Program Chair Lara Schmidt Sets and Streams. Amy Braverman e Amy. Connecticut, e [email protected] w [email protected] w http://www.rand. [email protected] w http://www.gal- http://www.icsa.org org/events/nsm2006.html axy.gmu.edu/Interface2006/i2006webpage. html June 25–30: Vilnius, Lithuania. 9th Inter- March 2006 national Vilnius Conference on Probability May 28–31: London, Ontario. 2006 Theory and Mathematical Statistics. Alek- March 14-17: Goethe University Annual Meeting of the Statistical Society sandras Plikusas e [email protected] w http:// Frankfurt/Main, Germany. German Open of Canada. Local Arrangements Chair, www.science.mii.lt/vilconf9/ Conference on Probability and Statistics. David Bellhouse: Dept of Statistical & w http://stoch2006.math.uni-frankfurt. Actuarial Sciences, Western Science Centre, de/index_en.html U of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Continued on page 34 34 . IMS Bulletin Volume 34 . Issue 7

International Calendar continued

June 26–29: Prague, Czech Republic. S4G and Steve Lalley (Probability); Sara van de Utah. IMS Annual Meeting at JSM2007 (Stereology, Spatial Statistics, Stochastic Geer and Guenther Walther (Statistics); Geometry): 6th International Conference. Local Chair: Maria Eulália Vares, CBPF July 2008 Viktor Benes e [email protected]ff.cuni.cz or w http://www.imstat.org/meetings/IMS2006/ Radka Juzkova e [email protected]. w July 20–26: Singapore. IMS Annual http://www.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/s4g/ August 2006 Meeting with Bernoulli World Congress. Details to follow. June 26 - July 7: Ithaca, NY. Probabil- August 6–10: Washington, Seattle. ity Summer School. Details to follow. JSM2006. w http://www.amstat.org/meet- August 2008 ings/jsm/2006 July 2006 August 3–8: Denver, Colorado. August 21-25: Prague, Czech Republic. JSM2008. July 2–7: Salvador (Bahia), Brazil. ICOTS- Prague Stochastics 2006: joint session of 7: Working Cooperatively in Statistics the 7th Prague Symposium on Asymptotic August 2009 Education. Contact Carmen Batanero e Statistics and the 15th Prague Conference [email protected] w http://www.maths.otago. on Information Theory, Statistical Decision August 2–6: Washington, DC. IMS ac.nz/icots7 Functions and Random Processes. Zuzana Annual Meeting at JSM2009 Prášková e [email protected]ff.cuni.cz w July 3–6: Auckland, New Zealand. http://www.utia.cas.cz/pragstoch06 Australian Statistics Conference & New Zealand Statistical Association Conference. August 28 – September 1: Rome, Italy. These meetings are also David Scott e [email protected] COMPSTAT2006: 17th Conference of listed on the ‘Meetings’ page the International Association for Statistical of the IMS website, at July 16-21: Computing. w http://w3.uniroma1.it/comp- Montreal, Quebec, Canada. http://www.imstat.org/meetings XXIII International Biometric Conference stat2006 e [email protected] (IBC2006). w http://www.ibc2006.org April 2007 July 17–21, 2006: Paris, France. Stochastic Processes and Applications April 15–18: Miami, FL. 2007 ENAR/ XXXI. IMS reps: E Perkins, J Pitman, IMS Spring Meeting. IMS Program Chair P Protter, A Sznitman, S Tavare and E TBA. w http://www.enar.org/meetings.htm Waymire. w http://www.proba.jussieu. fr/pageperso/spa06/index.html June 2007

July 24–28: Toruń, Poland. 26th European June 9–13, 2007: St John’s, Newfoundland. Meeting of Statisticians. e [email protected] 35th Annual Meeting of the Statistical w http://www.ems2006.umk.pl Society of Canada. Local Arrangements Chair: Brajendra Sutradhar UPDATED July 30 - August 4: Rio e [email protected] t (709) 737-8731 de Janeiro, Brazil. IMS Annual Meeting f (709) 737-8731 and XEBP Brazilian School of Probability meeting. At the Instituto Nacional de July 2007 Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA) in Rio de Janeiro. Program Chairs: Robert Adler July 29 – August 2: Salt Lake City, August/September . 2005 IMS Bulletin . 35

Membership and Subscription Information Information for Advertisers Journals: The scientific journals of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics are Statistical Science, The Annals of Statistics, The Annals of General information Probability and The Annals of Applied Probability. The IMS Bulletin is the news organ of the Institute. The IMS Bulletin and webpages are the official news organs of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. The IMS Bulletin, established Individual and Organizational Memberships: Each individual in 1972, is published 10 times per year. Circulation is 4,623 paper member receives the IMS Bulletin and may elect to receive one or more of the four scientific journals. Members pay annual dues of $75. copies (January 2005); the Bulletin is also available free online in An additional amount is added to the dues of members depending PDF format at www.imstat.org/bulletin; it is usually posted online on the scientific journal selected as follows: Statistical Science ($15), about two weeks before mailout. Subscription to the IMS Bulletin The Annals of Statistics ($30), The Annals of Probability ($30), and The staff@imstat. Annals of Applied Probability ($20). Of the total dues paid, $29 is costs $60. To subscribe, call (301) 634 7029 or email allocated to the Bulletin and the remaining amount is allocated among org. The IMS website, www.imstat.org, established in 1996, receives the scientific journals received. Reduced membership dues are available over 30,000 visits per month (31,338 in January 2005). Public to full-time students, new graduates, permanent residents of countries access is free. designated by the IMS Council, and retired members. Organizational memberships are available to institutions at $650 per year and to corporations at $850 per year. Organizational memberships include Advertising rates and requirements two multiple-readership copies of all IMS journals in addition to other Ad rates include copy in IMS Bulletin and on IMS web page (same benefits specified for each category (details available from the IMS price for placing ad in one medium). Ads will be posted on the web Business Office). site within 7-10 days of receipt. See below for Bulletin deadlines. Individual and General Subscriptions: Subscriptions are available We accept two kinds of adverts: camera-ready and text. Camera- on a calendar-year basis. Individual subscriptions are for the personal use of the subscriber and must be in the name of, paid directly by, ready ads should be sent as grayscale PDF with all fonts embedded. and mailed to an individual. 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The IMS Bulletin is copyrighted and [email protected] who will arrange for it to be placed in the Bulletin authors of individual articles may be asked to sign a copyright transfer and on the website. to the IMS before publication. The IMS Bulletin (ISSN 1544-1881) is published ten times per year in Deadlines and Mail Dates for IMS Bulletin January/February, March, April, May, June, July, August/September, Deadline for Scheduled Mail October, November and December by the Institute of Mathematical Issue Advertisement Online by Date Statistics, 3163 Somerset Dr, Cleveland, Ohio 44122, USA. 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Issue 7 in the The purpose of the Institute is to foster the nextissue development and dissemination October 2005 of the theory and applications of statistics and probability JSM and IMS Annual Meeting reports, IMS: Organized September 12, 1935 as well as news of members around the world, meeting JSM Seattle: August 6–10, 2006 announcements and JSM (the Joint Statistical Meetings) is job opportunities. the largest gathering of statisticians held in North America. It is held jointly with Send in your articles, the American Statistical Association, the feedback, letters… International Biometric Society (ENAR and WNAR), the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and the Statistical Society of Canada. Attended by over 5000 people, activities of the meeting include oral presentations, panel sessions, poster presentations, continuing education courses, exhibit hall, career placement service, society and section business DEADLINE meetings, committee meetings, social activities, and networking opportunities. for Seattle is the host city for JSM 2006 and off ers a wide range of possibilities for sharing submissions time with friends and colleagues. For information, contact [email protected] or phone September 1, toll-free (800) 308-8943. Check out http://www.seeseattle.org for more information. 2005

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